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1894 




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2Dl)c KitosiiOf iLttcrature Series; 



THE VISION OF SIR LAUNFAL 
AND OTHER POEMS 



/ 



JAMES EUSSELL LOWELL 



WITU NOTES AND A BIOGRAPHICAL 
SKETCH 




.'^(s>r^ 



I 



HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY 

Boston: 4 Park Street; New York: 11 East Seventeenth Street 
Chicago : 28 Lakeside Building 



CONTENTS. ^ \\\ ^ 



<^* 



Biographical Sketch i 

The Vision of Sir Launfal 3 

Ode Recited at the Harvard Commemoration . . 16 

On Board the '76 31 

An Indian-Summer Reverie 34 

The First Snow-Fall 45 

The Oak 47 

Prometheus 49 

To W. L. Garrison 61 

Wendell, Phillips 63 

Mr. Hosea Biglow to the Editor of the Atlantic 

Monthly 63 

Villa Franca , 70 

The Nightingale in the Study . . . . .73 

Aladdin 76 

Beaver Brook 76 

The Shepherd of King Admetus .... 78 

The Present Crisis 80 

Al Fresco 87 

The Foot-Path 90 



Houghton, Mifflin & Co. are the only authorized pub- 
Ushers of the xi'orks of Longfellow, Whittier, Lowell, 
Holmes, Emebson, Thobeau, and Hawthorne. All editions 
which lack the imprint or authorization of Houghton, 3Iifflin 
& Co. are issued ivithout the consent and contrary to the 
wishes of the authors or their heirs. 



Copyright, 1848, 1857, 1866, 1868, 1869, 1876, and 
By JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL. 

Copyright, 1887 and 1894, 
By HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN & CO. 

All rights reserved. 



*^. 



JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL. 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 

James Russell Lowell died August 12, 1891, at 
Elmwood, Cambridge, Massachusetts, in the house where 
he was born, February 22, 1819. His early life was spent 
in Cambridge, and he has sketched many of the scenes in 
it very delightfully in Cambridge Thirty Years Ago, in 
his volume of Fireside Travels, as weU as in his early 
poem. An Indian Summer Reverie. His father was a 
Congregationalist minister of Boston, and the family to 
which he belonged has had a strong representation in 
Massachusetts. His grandfather, John Lowell, was an 
eminent jurist, the Lowell Institute of Boston owes its 
endowment to John Lowell, a cousin of the poet, and 
the city of Lowell was named after Francis Cabot 
LoweU, an uncle, who was one of the first to begin the 
manufacturing of cotton in New England. 

Lowell was a student at Harvard, and was graduated 
in 1838, when he gave a class poem, and in 1841 his 
first volume of poems, A Year's Life, was pubHshedc 
His bent from the beginning was more decidedly literary 
than that of any contemporary American poet. That 
is to say, the history and art of Hterature divided his 
interest with the production of literature, and he carries 
the unusual gift of rare critical power, joined to hearty, 



U JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL. 

spontaneous creation. It may indeed be guessed that 
the keenness of judgment and incisiveness of wit which 
characterize his examination of literature have some- 
times interfered with his poetic power, and made him 
Hable to question his art when he would rather have ex- 
pressed it unchecked. In connection with Robert Carter, 
a litterateur who died before Lowell, he began, in 1843, 
the publication of The Pioneer^ a Literary and Critical 
Magazine, which lived a brilliant life of three months. 
A volume of poetry followed in 1844, and the next year 
he published Co7iversations on Some of the Old Poets, 
— a book which he did not keep alive, but interesting as 
marking the enthusiasm of a young scholar, treading a 
way then almost wholly neglected in America, and inti- 
mating a line of thought and study in which he after- 
ward made most noteworthy ventures. Another series 
of poems followed in 1848, and in the same year The 
Vision of Sir Launfal. Perhaps it was in reaction 
from the marked sentiment of his poetry that he issued 
now a jeu d' esprit, A Fable for Critics, in which he hit 
off, with a rough and ready wit, the characteristics of 
the writers of the day, not forgetting himseK in these 
lines: — 

•' There is Lowell, who 's striving Parnassus to climb 
With a whole bale of isms tied together with rhyme ; 
He might get on alone, spite of brambles and boulders, 
But he can't with that bundle he has on his shoulders ; 
The top of the hill he will ne'er come nigh reaching 
Till he learns the distinction 'twixt singing and preaching •, 
His lyre has some chords that would ring pretty well. 
But he 'd rather by half make a drum of the shell, 
And rattle away till he 's old as Methusalem, 
At the head of a march to the last new Jerusalem." 

This, of course, is but a half serious portrait of him- 
self, and it touches but a single feature ; others can say 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. in 

better that Lowell's ardent nature showed itself m the 
series of satirical poems which made him famous, The 
Blgloiv Papers, written in a spirit of indignation and 
fine scorn, when the Mexican War was causing many 
Americans to blush with shame at the use of the country 
by a class for its own ignoble ends. The true patriot- 
ism which marked these and other of his early poems 
burned with a steady glow in after years, and illumined 
poems of which we shall speak presently. 

After a year and a half spent in travel, Lowell was 
appointed in 1855 to the Belles Lettres professorship at 
Harvard, previously held by Longfellow. When the At- 
lantic Monthly was established in 1857 he became its 
editor, and not long after relinquishing that post he as- 
sumed part editorship of the North American Review. 
In these two magazines, as also in Putnam's Monthly, 
he published poems, essays, and critical papers, which 
have been gathered into volumes. His prose writings, 
besides the volumes already mentioned, include two se- 
ries of Among my Books, historical and critical studies, 
chiefly in English literature ; and My Study Windows, 
including, with similar subjects, observations of nature 
and contemporary life. During the war for the Union 
he pubhshed a second series of The Biglow Papers, in 
which, with the wit and fun of the earlier series, there 
was mingled a deeper strain of feeling and a larger tone 
of patriotism. The limitations of his style in these 
satires forbade the fullest expression of his thought and 
emotion ; but afterward in a succession of poems, oc- 
casioned by the honors paid to student-soldiers in Cam- 
bridge, the death of Agassiz, and the celebration of 
national anniversaries during the years 1875 and 1876, 
he sang in loftier, more ardent strains. The interest 



IV JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL. 

which readers have in Lowell is still divided between 
his rich, abundant prose, and his thoughtful, often pas- 
sionate verse. The sentiment of his early poetry, always 
humane, was greatly enriched by larger experience ; so 
that the themes which he chose for his later work de-= 
manded and received a broad treatment, full of sympa- 
thy with the most generous instincts of their time, and 
built upon historic foundations. His delightful excur- 
sions in the field of nature in prose were paralleled by 
even more delicate rescripts of nature in verse. 

In 1877 Lowell went to Spain as Minister Plenipoten- 
tiary. In 1880 he was transferred to England as Min- 
ister Plenipotentiary near the Court of St. James. His 
duties as American Minister did not prevent him from 
producing occasional writings, chiefly in connection with 
public events. Notable among these are his address at 
the unveiling of a statue of Fielding, and his address on 
Democracy. 

He returned to the United States in 1885, and the 
rest of his life was passed quietly in his Cambridge home, 
his impaired health preventing the accomplishment of 
much literary work.* In 1888, however, he published a 
collection of his later poems under the title Heartsease 
and Hue, and in 1890 finished a careful revision of his 
complete works, which were issued in ten volumes. 



THE VISION OF SIR LAUNFAL. 

[Author's Note. — According to the mythology of 
the Romancers, the San Greal, or Holy Grail, was the 
cup out of which Jesus Christ partook of the last supper 
with his disciples. It was brought into England by Jo- 
seph of Arimathea, and remained there, an object of pil- 
grimage and adoration, for many years in the keeping of 
his lineal descendants. It was incumbent upon those 
who had charge of it to be chaste in thought, word, and 
deed ; but one of the keepers having broken this condi- 
tion, the Holy Grail disappeared. From that time it 
was a favorite enterprise of the Knights of Arthur's 
court to go in search of it. Sir Galahad was at last suc- 
cessful in finding it, as may be read in the seventeenth 
book of the Romance of King Arthur. Tennyson has 
made Sir Galahad the subject of one of the most exqui- 
site of his poems. 

The plot (if I may give that name to anything so 
slight) of the following poem is my own, and, to serve 
its purposes, I have enlarged the circle of competition 
in search of the miraculous cup in such a manner as to 
include not only other persons than the heroes of the 
Round Table, but also a period of time subsequent to the 
date of King Arthur's reign.] 



6 LOWELL. 

And the heart in her dumb breast flutters and sings *, 

65 He sings to the wide world, and she to her nest, — 
In the nice ear of Nature which song is the best ? 

r 

Now is the high-tide of the year, 

And whatever of life hath ebbed away 
Comes flooding back with a ripply cheer, 
60 Into every bare inlet and creek and bay ; 
Now the heart is so full that a drop overfills it, 
We are happy now because God wills it ; _j 
No matter how barren the past may have been, 
'T is enough for us now that the leaves are green ; 

66 We sit in the warm shade and feel right well 
How the sap creeps up and the blossoms swell ; 
We may shut our eyes, but we cannot help knowing 
That skies are clear and grass is growing ; 

The breeze comes whispering in our ear, 
70 That dandelions are blossoming near. 

That maize has sprouted, that streams are flowing, 
That the river is bluer than the sky. 
That the robin is plastering his house hard by ; 
And if the breeze kept the good news back, 
75 For other couriers we should not lack ; 

We could guess it all by yon heifer's lowing, — 
And hark ! how clear bold chanticleer, 
Warmed with the new wine of the year. 

Tells all in his lusty crowing ! 

I 80 Joy comes, grief goes, we know not how ; 
Everything is happy now. 

Everything is upward striving ; 
'T is as easy now for the heart to be true 
As for grass to be green or skies to be blue, — 



THE VISION OF SI/R LAUNFAL. 

8B "£ is the natural way" of living : J 

Who knows whithfcr the clouds have fled ? 

In the unscarred heaven they leave no wake 
And the eyes forget the tears they have shed, 
The heart forgets its sorrow and ache ; 
90 The soul partakes of the season's youth, 

And the sulphurous rifts of passion and woe 
Lie deep 'neath a silence pure and smooth. 
Like burnt-out craters healed with snow. 
' What wonder if Sir Launfal now 
96 Remembered the keeping of his vow ? 

PART FIRST. 



" Mt golden spurs now bring to me. 
And bring to me my richest mail. 
For to-morrow I go over land and sea 
In search of the Holy Grail ; 
100 Shall never a bed for me be spread, 
Nor shall a pillow be under my head, 
Till I begin my vow to keep ; 
Here on the rushes will I sleep, 
And perchance there may come a vision true 
106 Ere day create the world anew." 

Slowly Sir Launfal's eyes grew dim. 
Slumber fell like a cloud on him. 
And into his soul the vision flew. 

n. 
The crows flapped over by twos and threes, 
110 In the pool drowsed the cattle up to their knees, 
The little birds sang as if it were 



8 LO WELL. 

The one day of summer m all the year ' 
And the very leaves seemed to si% on the trees : 
The castle alone in the landscape lay 

116 Like an outpost of winter, dull and gray : 

'T was the proudest hall in the North Countree, 
And never its gates might opened be, 
Save to lord or lady of high degree ; 
Summer besieged it on every side, 

120 But the churlish stone her assaults defied ; 
She could not scale the chilly wall, 
Though around it for leagues her pavilions tall 
Stretched left and right, 
Over the hills and out of sight ; 

126 Green and broad was every tent, 
And out of each a murmur went 
Till the breeze fell off at night. 

III. 
The drawbridge dropped with a surly clang, 
And through the dark arch a charger sprang, 
130 Bearing Sir Launfal, the maiden knight. 
In his gilded mail, that flamed so bright 
It seemed the dark castle had gathered all 
Those shafts the fierce sun had shot over its wall 
In his siege of three hundred summers long, 
135 And, binding them all in one blazing sheaf, 

Had cast them forth : so, young and strong. 
And lightsome as a locust-leaf. 
Sir Launfal flashed forth in his unscarred mail, 
To seek in all climes for the Holy Grail. » 

IV. 

140 It was morning on hill and stream and tree, 
And morning in the young knight's heart ; 



THE VISION OF SIR LAUNFAL, 9 

Only the castle moodily- 
Rebuffed the gifts of the sunshine free, 
And gloomed by itself apart ; 
146 The season brimmed all other things up 
Full as the rain fills the pitcher-plant's cup. 

r 

As Sir Launfal made morn through the darksome 
gate, 
He was 'ware of a leper, crouched by the same, 
Who begged with his hand and moaned as he sate ; 
160 And a loathing over Sir Launfal came ; 
The sunshine went out of his soul with a thrill. 

The flesh 'neath his armor 'gan shrink and crawl. 
And midway its leap his heart stood still 
Like a frozen waterfall ; 
166 For this man, so foul and bent of stature. 
Rasped harshly against his dainty nature, 
And seemed the one blot on the summer morn, — 
So he tossed him a piece of gold in scorn. 

VI. 

The leper raised not the gold from the dust : 
160 " Better to me the poor man's crust. 

Better the blessing of the poor, 

Though I turn me empty from his door ; 

That is no true alms which the hand can hold ; 

He gives nothing but worthless gold 
165 Who gives from a sense of duty ; 

But he who gives but a slender mite, 

And gives to that which is out of sight. 
That thread of the all-sustaining Beauty 

Which runs through all and doth all unite, — 



10 LOWELL. 

170 The hand cannot clasp the whole of his alms, 
The heart outstretches its eager palms, 
For a god goes with it and makes it store 
To the soul that was starving in darkness before." 



PRELUDE TO PART SECOND. 

Down swept the chill wind from the mountain peak, 
17B From the snow five thousand summers old ; 

On open wold and hill-top bleak 
It had gathered all the cold, 

And whirled it Hke sleet on the wanderer's cheek : 

It carried a shiver everywhere j 
180 From the unleaf ed boughs and pastures bare ; 

The little brook heard it and built a roof 

'Neath which he could house him, winter-proof; 

All night by the white stars' frosty gleams 

He groined his arches and matched his beams ; 
185 Slender and clear were his crystal spars 

As the lashes of light that trim the stars ; 

He sculptured every summer delight 

In his halls and chambers out of sight ; 

Sometimes his tinkling waters slipt 
190 Down through a frost-leaved forest-crypt, 

Long, sparkling aisles of steel-stemmed trees 

Bending to counterfeit a breeze ; 

Sometimes the roof no fretwork knew 

But silvery mosses that downward grew ; 
195 Sometimes it was carved in sharp relief 

With quaint arabesques of ice-fern leaf ; 

174. Note the different moods that are indicated by the two preludfis. The 
one is of June, the other of snow and winter. By these preludes the poet, 
like an organist, strikes a key which he holds in the subsequent parts. 



THE VISION OF SIR LAUNFAL. 11 

Sometimes it was simply smooth and clear 

For the gladness of heaven to shine through, and 
here 

He had caught the nodding bulrush-tops 
500 And hung them thickly with diamond-drops, 

That crystalled the beams of moon and sun, 

And made a star of every one : 

No mortal builder's most rare device 

Could match this winter-palace of ice ; 
«05 'T was as if every image that mirrored lay 

In his depths serene through the summer day, 

Each fleeting shadow of earth and sky, 
Lest the happy model should be lost, 

Had been mimicked in fairy masonry 
210 By the elfin builders of the frost. 

Within the hall are song and laughter, 

The cheeks of Christmas grow red and jolly, 
And sprouting is every corbel and rafter 
With lightsome green of ivy and holly ; 
216 Through the deep gulf of the chimney wide 
Wallows the Yule-log's roaring tide ; 
The broad flame-pennons droop and flap 

And belly and tug as a flag in the wind ; 
Like a locust shrills the imprisoned sap, 
320 Hunted to death in its galleries blind ; 

203, The Empress of Russia, Catherine II., in a magnificent freak, built a 
palace of ice, which was a nine-days' wonder. Cowper has given a poetical 
description of it in The Task, Book V. lines 131-176. 

216. The Yule-log was anciently a huge log burned at the feast of Juul 
(pronoimced Yule) by our Scandinavian ancestors in honor of the god Thor. 
Juul-tid (Yule-time) corresponded in time to Christmas tide, and when Chris- 
tian festivities took the place of pagan, many ceremonies remained. The 
great log, still called the Yule-log, was dragged in and burned in the fireplace 
after Thor had been forgotten. 



12 LO WELL. 

And swift little troops of silent sparks, 

Now pausing, now scattering away as in fear. 
Go threading the soot-forest's tangled darks 
Like herds of startled deer. 
225 But the wind without was eager and sharp. 
Of Sir Launfal's gray hair it makes a harp, 
And rattles and wrings 
The icy strings. 
Singing, in dreary monotone, 
230 A Christmas carol of its own. 

Whose burden still, as he might guess, 
Was — " Shelterless, shelterless, shelterless ! " 
The voice of the seneschal flared like a torch 
As he shouted the wanderer away from the porch, 
235 And he sat in the gateway and saw all night 
The great hall-fire, so cheery and bold. 
Through the window-slits of the castle old. 
Build out its piers of ruddy light 
Against the drift of the cold. 

PART SECOND. 

I. 

240 There was never a leaf on bush or tree, 

The bare boughs rattled shudderingly ; 

The river was dumb and could not speak. 
For the weaver Winter its shroud had spun, 

A single crow on the tree-top bleak 
246 From his shining feathers shed off the cold sun ; 

Again it was morning, but shrunk and cold. 

As if her veins were sapless and old. 

And she rose up decrepitly 

For a last dim look at earth and sea. 



THE VISION OF SIR LAUNFAL, 13 

II. 

250 Sir Launfal turned from his own hard gate, 
For another heir in his earldom sate ; 
An old, bent man, worn out and frail. 
He came back from seeking the Holy Grail ; 
Little he recked of his earldom's loss, 

255 No more on his surcoat was blazoned the cross, 
But deep in his soul the sign he wore, 
The badge of the suffering and the poor. 

in. 

Sir Launfal' s raiment thin and spare 

Was idle mail 'gainst the barbed air, 
260 For it was just at the Christmas time ; 

So he mused, as he sat, of a sunnier clime, 

And sought for a shelter from cold and snow 

In the light and warmth of long-ago ; 

He sees the snake-like caravan crawl 
265 O'er the edge of the desert, black and small, 

Then nearer and nearer, till, one by one, 

He can count the camels in the sun. 

As over the red-hot sands they pass 

To where, in its slender necklace of grass, 
270 The little spring laughed and leapt in the shade. 

And with its own self like an infant played, 

And waved its signal of palms. 

IV. 

" For Clirist's sweet sake, I beg an alms ; " — 
The happy camels may reach the spring, 
275 But Sir Launfal sees only the grewsome thing. 
The leper, lank as the rain-blanched bone, 



14 LOWELL. 

That cowers beside him, a thing as lone 
And white as the ice-isles of Northern seas 
In the desolate horror of his disease. 

V. 

380 And Sir Launfal said, — *' I behold in thee 
An image of Him who died on the tree ; 
Thou also hast had thy crown of thorns, — 
Thou also hast had the world's buffets and scorns, — = 
And to thy life were not denied 

285 The wounds in the hands and feet and side : 
Mild Mary's Son, acknowledge me ; 
Behold, through him, I give to Thee ! " 

VI. 

Then the soul of the leper stood up in his eyes 
And looked at Sir Launfal, and straightway he 
290 Remembered in what a haughtier guise 
He had flung an alms to leprosie. 
When he girt his young life up in gilded mail 
And set forth in search of the Holy Grail. 
The heart within him was ashes and dust ; 
295 He parted in twain his single crust. 

He broke the ice -on the streamlet's brink, 
And gave the leper to eat and drink : 
'T was a mouldy crust of coarse brown bread, 
'T was water out of a wooden bowl, — 
300 Yet with fine wheaten bread was the leper fed, 

And 't was red wine he drank with his thirsty soul. 

VII. 

As Sir Launfal mused with a downcast face, 
A light shone round about the place ; 



THE VISION OF SIR LAUNFAL. 15 

The leper no longer crouched at his side, 
805 But stood before him glorified, 

Shining and tall and fair and straight 

As the pillar that stood by the Beautiful Gate, — 

Himself the Gate whereby men can 

Enter the temple of God in Man. 

VIII. 

810 His words were shed softer than leaves from the pine, 
And they fell on Sir Launfal as snows on the brine, 
That mingle their softness and quiet in one 
With the shaggy unrest they float down upon ; 
And the voice that was cahner than silence said, 

315 •' Lo it is I, be not afraid ! 
In many climes, without avail, 
Thou hast spent thy life for the Holy Grail ; 
Behold, it is here, — this cup which thou 
Didst fill at the streamlet for Me but now ; 

820 This crust is My body broken for thee. 
This water His blood that died on the tree ; 
The Holy Supper is kept, indeed, 
In whatso we share with another's need : 
Not what we give, but what we share, — 

825 For the gift without the giver is bare ; 

Who gives himself with his alms feeds three, — 
Himself, his hungering neighbor, and Me." 

IX. 

Sir Launfal awoke as from a swound : — 
" The Grail in my castle here is found ! 
330 Hang my idle armor up on the wall. 
Let it be the spider's banquet-hall ; 
He must be fenced with stronger mail 
Who would seek and find the Holy Grail.'' j 



16 LOWELL. 

X. 

The castle gate stands open now, 
335 And the wanderer is welcome to the hall 

As the hangbird is to the elm-tree bough ; 
No longer scowl the turrets tall, 

The Summer's long siege at last is o'er ; 

When the first poor outcast went in at the door, 
340 She entered with him in disguise. 

And mastered the fortress by surprise ; 

There is no spot she loves so well on ground, 

She lingers and smiles there the whole year round 

The meanest serf on Sir Launf al's land 
346 Has hall and bower at his command ; 

And there 's no poor man in the North Countree 

But is lord of the earldom as much as he. 



ODE RECITED AT THE HARVARD COM- 
MEMORATION. 

[On the 21st of July, 1865, Harvard University wel- 
comed back those of its students and graduates who 
had fought in the war for the Union. By exercises in 
the church and at the festival which followed, the ser- 
vices of the dead and the living were commemorated. 
It was on this occasion that Mr. Lowell recited the fol- 
lowing ode.] 

I. 

Weak-winged is song, 
Nor aims at that clear-ethered height 
Whither the brave deed climbs for light i 

We seem to do them wrong. 



COMMEMORATION ODE 17 

5 Bringing our robin's-leaf to deck their hearse 
Who in warm life-blood wrote their nobler verse, 
Our trivial song to honor those who come 
With ears attuned to strenuous trump and drum, 
And shaped in squadron-strophes their desire, 
AO Live battle-odes whose lines were steel and fire : 

Yet sometimes feathered words are strong, 
A gracious memory to buoy up and save 
From Lethe's dreamless ooze, the common grave 

Of the unventurous throng, 

II. 

IB To-day our Reverend Mother welcomes back 
Her wisest Scholars, those who understood 
The deeper teaching of her mystic tome, 

And offered their fresh lives to make it good : 
No lore of Greece or Rome, 
20 No science peddling with the names of things, ,*» 
Or reading stars to find inglorious fates, ^Sa 

Can lift our life with wings 
Far from Death's idle gulf that for the many waits. 
And lengthen out our dates 
26 With that clear fame whose memory sings 

In manly hearts to come, and nerves them and dilates : 
Nor such thy teaching, Mother of us all ! 
Not such the trumpet-call 
Of thy diviner mood, 
30 That could thy sons entice 

From happy homes and toils, the fruitful nest 
Of those half-virtues which the world calls best, 
Into War's tumult rude ; 
But rather far that stern device 
35 The sponsors chose that round thy cradle stood 



18 LOWELL. 

In the dim, unventured wood, 
The Veritas that lurks beneath 
The letter's unprolific sheath, 
Life of whate'er makes life worth living, 
40 Seed-grain of high emprise, immortal food, 

One heavenly thing whereof earth hath the giving 

III. 

Many loved Truth, and lavished life's best oil 

Amid the dust of books to find her. 
Content at last, for guerdon of their toil, 
45 With the cast mantle she hath left behind her. 
Many in sad faith sought for her. 
Many with crossed hands sighed for her ; 
But these, our brothers, fought for her, 
At life's dear peril wrought for her, 
60 So loved her that they died for her, 

Tasting the raptured fleetness 
Of her divine completeness * 
Their higher instinct knew 
Those love her best who to themselves are true, 
55 And what they dare to dream of, dare to do ; 
They followed her and found her 
Where all may hope to find, 
Not in the ashes of the burnt-out mind. 
But beautiful, with danger's sweetness round her. 
60 Where faith made whole with deed 
Breathes its awakening breath 
Into the lifeless creed, 
They saw her plumed and mailed, 
With sweet, stern face unveiled, 
65 And all-repaying eyes, look proud on them in death. 

37. An early emblem of Harvard College was a sliield with Veritas (truth) 
upon three open books. This device is still used. 



COMMEMORATION ODE. 19 

IV. 

Our slender life runs rippling by, and glides 
Into the silent hollow of the past ; 

What is there that abides 
To make the next age better for the last ? 
70 Is earth too poor to give us 

Something to live for here that shall outlive us ? 
Some more substantial boon 
Than such as flows and ebbs with Fortune's fickle 
moon ? 
The little that we see 
75 From doubt is never free ; 

The little that we do 
Is but half-nobly true ; 
With our laborious hiving 
What men call treasure, and the gods call fiross, 
80 Life seems a jest of Fate's contriving, 
Only secure in every one's conniving, 
A long account of nothings paid with loss. 
Where we poor puppets, jerked by unseen wires, 
After om' little hour of strut and rave, 
85 With all our pasteboard passions and desires. 
Loves, hates, ambitions, and immortal fires, 
Are tossed pell-mell together in the grave. 
But stay ! no age was e'er degenerate, 
Unless men held it at too cheap a rate, 
90 For in our likeness still we shape our fate. 
Ah, there is something here 
Unfathomed by the cynic's sneer. 
Something that gives our feeble light 
A high immunity from Night, 
95 Something that leaps life's narrow bars 



20 LO WELL. 

To claim its birthright with the hosts of heaven ; 
A seed of sunshine that doth leaven 
Our earthly dulness with the beams of stars, 
And glorify our clay 
100 With light from fountains elder than the Day ; 
A conscience more divine than we, 
A gladness fed with secret tears, 
A vexing, forward-reaching sense 
Of some more noble permanence ; 
106 A light across the sea. 

Which haunts the soul and will not let it be. 
Still glimmering from the heights of undegenerate 
years. 



Whither leads the path 
T^ampler fates that leads ? 
110 Not down through flowery meads, 

To reap an aftermath 
Of youth's vainglorious weeds ; 
But up the steep, amid the wrath 
And shock of deadly-hostile creeds. 
Hi Where the world's best hope and stay 
By battle's flashes gropes a desperate way, 
And every turf the fierce foot clings to bleeds. 
Peace hath her not ignoble wreath, 
Ere yet the sharp, decisive word 
120 Light the black lips of cannon, and the sword 
Dreams in its easeful sheath ; 
But some day the live coal behind the thought, 
Whether from Baal's stone obscene. 
Or from the shrine serene 
125 Of God's pure altar brought, 



COMMEMORATION ODE. 21 

Bursts up in flame ; the war of tongue and pen 
Learns with what deadly purpose it was fraught, 
And, helpless in the fiery passion caught. 
Shakes all the pillared state with shock of men : 
130 Some day the soft Ideal that we wooed 
Confronts us fiercely, foe-beset, pursued, 
And cries reproachful : " Was it, then, my praise, 
And not myself was loved ? Prove now thy truth ; 
I claim of thee the promise of thy youth ; 
135 Give me thy life, or cower in empty phrase, 
The victim of thy genius, not its mate ! " 
Life may be given in many ways. 
And loyalty to Truth be sealed 
As bravely in the closet as the field, 
140 So bountiful is Fate ; 

But then to stand beside her, 
When craven churls deride her, 
To front a lie in arms and not to yield, 
This shows, methinks, God's plan 
145 And measure of a stalwart man. 

Limbed like the old heroic breeds, 
Who stands self-poised on manhood's solid earth. 
Not forced to frame excuses for his birth, 
Fed from within with all the strength he needs. 

VI. 

150 Such was he, our Martyr-Chief, 

Whom late the Nation he had led. 
With ashes on her head, 
Wept with the passion of an angry grief : 
Forgive me, if from present things I turn 
155 To speak what in my heart will beat and burn, 
And hang my wreath on his world-honored urn. 



22 LOWELL. 

Nature, they say, doth dote, 
And cannot make a man 
Save on some worn-out plan, 
160 RejDeating us by rote : 

For him her Old-World moulds aside she threw. 
And, choosing sweet clay from the breast 
Of the unexhausted West, 
With stuff untainted shaped a hero new, 
165 Wise, steadfast in the strength of God, and true. 
How beautiful to see 
Once more a shepherd of mankind indeed, 
Who loved his charge, but never loved to lead ; 
One whose meek flock the people joyed to be, 
170 Not lured by any cheat of birth. 

But by his clear-grained human worth, 
And brave old wisdom of sincerity ! 
They knew that outward grace is dust ; 
They could not choose but trust 
175 In that sure-footed mind's unfaltering skill. 
And supple-tempered will 
That bent like perfect steel to spring again and thrust 
His was no lonely mountain-peak of mind, 
Thrusting to thin air o'er our cloudy bars, 
180 A sea-mark now, now lost in vapors blind ; 
Broad prairie rather, genial, level-lined. 
Fruitful and friendly for all human-kind, 
Yet also nigh to heaven and loved of loftiest stars. 
Nothing of Europe here, 
185 Or, then, of Europe fronting mornward still, 
Ere any names of Serf and Peer 
Could Nature's equal scheme deface 

And thwart her genial will ; 
Here was a type of the true elder race, 
190 And one of Plutarch's men talked with us face to face. 



COMMEMORATION ODE. 23 

I praise him not ; it were too late ; 
And some innative weakness there must be 
In him who condescends to victory 
Such as the Present gives, and cannot wait, 
195 Safe in himself as m a fate. 
So always firmly he : 
He knew to bide his time, 
And can his fame abide. 
Still patient in his simple faith sublime, 
200 Till the wise years decide. 

Great captains, with their guns and drums, 
Disturb our judgment for the hour, 
But at last silence comes ; 
These all are gone, and, standing like a tower, 
208 Our children shall behold his fame. 

The kindly-earnest, brave, foreseeing man, 
Sagacious, patient, dreading praise, not blame, 
New birth of our new soil, the first American. 

vn. 

Long as man's hope insatiate can discern 
210 Or only guess some more inspiring goal 

Outside of Self, enduring as the pole. 
Along whose course the flying axles burn 
Of spirits bravely-pitched, earth's manlier brood ; 
Long as below we cannot find 
215 The meed that stills the inexorable mind ; 
So long this faith to some ideal Good, 
Under whatever mortal name it masks, 
Freedom, Law, Country, this ethereal mood 
That thanks the Fates for their severer tasks, 
220 Feeling its challenged pulses leap, 

While others skulk in subterfuges cheap, 



24 LOWELL. 

And, set in Danger's van, has all the boon it asks, 
Shall win man's praise and woman's love, 
Shall be a wisdom that we set above 

225 All other skills and gifts to culture dear, 

A virtue round whose forehead we enwreathe 
Laurels that with a living passion breathe 
When other crowns grow, while we twine them, sear. 
What brings us thronging these liigh rites to pay^ 

230 And seal these hours the noblest of our year, 

Save that our brothers found this better way ? 

vin. 

We sit here in the Promised Land 
That flows with Freedom's honey and milk ; 
But 't was they won it, sword in hand, 
235 Making the nettle danger soft for us as silk. 

We welcome back our bravest and our best ; — 
Ah me ! not all ! some come not with the rest. 
Who went forth brave and bright as any here ! 
I strive to mix some gladness with my strain, 
240 But the sad strings complain, 

And will not please the ear : 
I sweep them for a paean, but they wane 

Again and yet again 
Into a dirge, and die away in pain. 
245 In these brave ranks I only see the gaps, 

Thinking of dear ones whom the dumb turf wraps, 
Dark to the triumph which they died to gain : 
Fitlier may others greet the living. 
For me the past is unforgiving ; 
2S0 I with uncovered head 

Salute the sacred dead, 

235. See Shakspeare, King Heni-y IV. PL I. Act II. Sc. 3. 
" Out of this nettle, danger, we pluck this flower, safety." 



COMMEMORATION ODE. 25 

Who went, and who return not. — Say not so ! 

'T is not the grapes of Canaan that repay, 

But the high faith that failed not by the way ; 
265 Virtue treads paths that end not in the grave ; 

No bar of endless night exiles the brave ; 
And to the saner mind 

We rather seem the dead that stayed behind. 

Blow, trumpets, aU your exultations blow ! 
260 For never shall their aureoled presence lack : 

I see them muster in a gleaming row, 

With ever-youthful brows that nobler show ; 

We j&nd in our dull road their shining track ; 
In every nobler mood 
265 We feel the orient of their spirit glow, 

Part of our life's unalterable good. 

Of all our saintlier aspiration ; 

They come transfigured back. 

Secure fron^ change in their high-hearted ways, 
270 Beautiful evermore, and with the rays 

Of morn on their white Shields of Expectation ! 

IX. 

But is there hope to save 
Even this ethereal essence from the grave ? 
What ever 'scaped Obhvion's subtle wrong 
275 Save a few clarion names, or golden threads of song 
Before my musing eye 
The mighty ones of old sweep by, 
Disvoic^d now and insubstantial things. 
As noisy once as we ; poor ghosts of kings, 

253. See the BooTc of Numbers , chapter xiii. 
255. Compare Gray's line in Elegy in a Country Churchyard. 
" The paths of glory lead but to the grave." 



26 LOWELL. 

280 Shadows of empire wholly gone to dust, 
And many races, nameless long ago, 
To darkness driven by that imperious gust 
Of ever-rushing Time that here doth blow : 
O visionary world, condition strange, 
28B Where naught abiding is but only Change, 

Where the deep-bolted stars themselves still shift and 
range ! 
Shall we to more continuance make pretence ? 
Renown builds tombs ; a life-estate is Wit ; 
And, bit by bit, 
290 The cunning years steal all from us but woe : 
Leaves are we, whose decays no harvest sow. 

But, when we vanish hence, 
Shall they he forceless in the dark below. 
Save to make green their little length of sods, 
296 Or deepen pansies for a year or two. 

Who now to us are shining-sweet as^ods ? 
Was dying all they had the skill to do ? 
That were not fruitless : but the Soul resents 
Such short-lived service, as if blind events 
300 Ruled without her, or earth could so endure ; 
She claims a more divine investiture 
Of longer tenure than Fame's airy rents ; 
Whate'er she touches doth her nature share ; 
Her inspiration haunts the ennobled air, 
Gives eyes to mountains blind, 
SOB Ears to the deaf earth, voices to the wind, 

And her clear trump sings succor everywhere 
By lonely bivouacs to the wakeful mind ; 
For soul inherits all that soul could dare : 
Yea, Manhood hath a wider span 
310 And larger privilege of life than man. 



COMMEMORATION ODE. 27 

The single deed, the private sacrifice, 
So radiant now through proudly-hidden tears, 
Is covered up ere long from raortval eyes 
With thoughtless drift of the deciduous years ; 
315 But that high privilege that makes all men peers, 
That leap of heart whereby a people rise 
Up to a noble anger's height. 
And, flamed on by the Fates, not shrink, but grow 
more bright. 
That swift validity in noble veins, 
320 Of choosing danger and disdaining shame, 

Of being set on flame 
By the pure fire that flies all contact base. 
But wraps its chosen with angelic might. 
These are imperishable gains, 
325 Sure as the sun, medicinal as light. 

These hold great futures in their lusty reins 
And certify to earth a new imperial race. 

X. 

Who now shall sneer ? 
Who dare again to say we trace 
330 Our lines to a plebeian race ? 

Roundhead and Cavalier ! 
Dumb are those names erewhile in battle loud ; 
Dream-footed as the shadow of a cloud, 
They flit across the ear : 
335 That is best blood that hath most iron in 't. 
To edge resolve with, pouring without stint 
For what makes manhood dear. 
Tell us not of Plantagenets, 
Hapsburgs, and Guelfs, whose thin bloods crawl 
340 Down from some victor in a border-brawl ! 



28 LO WELL. 

How poor their outworn coronets, 
Matched with one leaf of that plain civic wreath 
Our brave for honor's blazon shall bequeath, 
Through whose desert a rescued Nation sets 
345 Her heel on treason, and the trumpet hears 
Shout victory, tingling Europe's sullen ears 
With vain resentments and more vain regrets ! 

XI. 

Not in anger, not in pride. 

Pure from passion's mixture rude, 
350 Ever to base earth allied, 

But with far-heard gratitude. 

Still with heart and voice renewed. 
To heroes living and dear martyrs dead. 
The strain should close that consecrates our brave. 
S55 Lift the heart and lift the head ! 

Lofty be its mood and grave, 

Not without a martial ring. 

Not without a prouder tread 

And a peal of exultation : 
360 Little right has he to sing 

Through whose heart in such an hour 

Beats no march of conscious power. 

Sweeps no tumult of elation ! 

'T is no Man we celebrate, 
365 By his country's victories great, 

A hero half, and half the whim of Fate, 

But the pith and marrow of a Nation 

Drawing force from all her men. 

Highest, humblest, weakest, all, 
370 For her time of need, and then 

Pulsing it again through them. 



COMMEMORATION ODE. 29 

Till the basest can no longer cower, 
Feeling his soul spring up divinely tall, 
Touched but in passing by her mantle-hem. 
375 Come back, then, noble pride, for 't is her dower ! 
How could poet ever tower. 
If his passions, hopes, and fears. 
If his trimmphs and his tears. 
Kept not measure with his people ? 
380 Boom, camion, boom to all the winds and waves ! 
Clash out, glad bells, from every rocking steeple ! 
Banners, adance with triumph, bend your staves \ 
And from every mountain -peak 
Let beacon-fire to answering beacon speak, 
385 Katahdin tell Monadnock, Whiteface he. 
And so leap on in light from sea to sea. 
Till the glad news be sent 
Across a kindling continent, 
Making earth feel more lii*m and air breathe braver ■. 
390 " Be proud ! for she is saved, and all have helped to 
save her ! 
She that lifts up the manhood of the poor. 
She of the open soul and open door, 
"With room about her hearth for all mankind ! 
The file is dreadful in her eyes no more ; 
395 From her bold front the helm she doth unbind. 
Sends all her handmaid armies back to spin, 
And bids her navies, that so lately hurled 
Their crashing battle, hold their thunders in, 
Swimming like birds of calm along the unharmful 
shore. 
400 No challenge sends she to the elder world. 

That looked askance and hated ; a light scorn 
Plays o'er her mouth, as round her mighty knees 



30 LO WELL. 

She calls her children back, and waits the morn 
Of nobler day, enthroned between her subject seas." 

XII. 

405 Bow down, dear Land, for thou hast found release ! 
Thy God, in these distempered days, 
Hath taught thee the sure wisdom of His ways. 
And through thine enemies hath wrought thy peace I 
Bow down in prayer and praise ! 
410 No poorest in thy borders but may now 

Lift to the juster skies a man's enfranchised brow, 
O Beautiful ! my Country ! ours once more ! 
Smoothing thy gold of war-dishevelled hair 
O'er such sweet brows as never other wore, 
415 And letting thy set lips, 

Freed from wrath's pale eclipse. 
The rosy edges of their smile lay bare. 
What words divine of lover or of poet 
Could tell our love and make thee know it, 
420 Among the Nations bright beyond compare ? 
What were our lives without thee ? 
What all our lives to save thee ? 
We reck not what we gave thee ; 
We will not dare to doubt thee, 
486 But ask whatever else, and we will dare 1 



ON BOARD THE '76. 31 



ON BOARD THE 76. 

WRITTEN FOR MR. BRYANT's SEVENTIETH BIRTHDAY. 

NOVKMBEE 3, 1864. 

[After the disastrous battle of Bull Run, Congress 
authorized the creation of an army of 500,000, and the 
expenditure of $500,000,000. The affair of the Trent 
had partially indicated the temper of the English govern- 
ment, and the people of the United States were thoroughly 
roused to a sense of the great task which lay before 
them. Mr. Bryant, at this time, not only gave strong 
support to the Union through his paper The Evening 
Post of New York, but wrote two lyrics which had a 
profound effect. One of these, entitled Hot Yet, was 
addressed to those of the Old World who were secretly 
or openly desiring the downfall of the republic. The 
other, 0217' Country's Call, was a thrilling appeal for 
recruits. It is to this time and these two poems that 
Mr. Lowell refers in the lines that follow.] 

Our ship lay tumbhng in an angry sea, 

Her rudder gone, her mainmast o'er the side ; 
Her scuppers, from the waves' clutch staggering free, 
Trailed threads of priceless crimson through the tide; 
6 Sailg, shrouds, and spars with pirate cannon torn. 
We lay, awaiting morn. 

Awaiting morn, such morn as mocks despair ; 
And she that bare the promise of the world 
Within her sides, now hopeless, helmless, bare, 
10 At random o'er the wildering waters hurled ; 



32 LOWELL. 

The reek of battle drifting slow alee 
Not sullener than we. 

Morn came at last to peer into our woe, 

When lo, a sail ! Now surely help was nigh ; 
15 The red cross flames aloft, Christ's pledge ; but no. 
Her black guns grinning hate, she rushes by 
And hails us : — " Gains the leak ! Ay, so we 
thought J 
Sink, then, with curses fraught ! " 

I leaned against my gun still angry-hot, 
20 And my lids tingled with the tears held back ; 
This scorn methought was crueller than shot : 

The manly death-grip in the battle-wrack, 
Yard-arm to yard-arm, were more friendly far 
Than such fear-smothered war. 

25 There our foe wallowed, like a wounded brute 
The fiercer for his hurt. What now were best ? 
Once more tug bravely at the peril's root. 

Though death came with it ? Or evade the test 
If right or wrong in this God's world of ours 
30 Be leagued with higher powers ? 

Some, faintly loyal, felt their pulses lag 

With the slow beat that doubts and then despairs ; 
Some, caitiff, would have struck the starry flag 
That knits us with our past, and makes us heirs 
35 Of deeds high-hearted as were ever done 
'Neath the all-seeing sun. 

15. The red cross is the Britisli flag. 



ON BOARD THE '76. 33 

But there was one, the Singer of our crew, 

Upon whose head Age waved liis peaceful sign, 
But whose red heart's-blood no surrender knew ; 
40 And couchant under brows of massive line. 
The eyes, like guns beneath a parapet, 

Watched, charged with lightnings yet. 

The voices of the hills did his obey ; 

The torrents flashed and tumbled in his song ; 
45 He brought our native fields from far away, 
Or set us 'mid the innumerable throng 
Of dateless woods, or where we heard the calm 
Old homestead's evening psalm. 

But now he sang of faith to things unseen, 
60 Of freedom's birthright given to us in trust ; 
And words of doughty cheer he spoke between, 

That made all earthly fortune seem as dust, 
Matched with that duty, old as Time and new. 
Of being brave and true. 

55 We, listening, learned what makes the might of 
words, — 
Manhood to back them, constant as a star ; 
His voice rammed home our cannon, edged our 
swords. 
And sent our boarders shouting ; shroud and spar 
Heard him and stiffened ; the sails heard, and wooed 
60 The winds with loftier mood. 

In our dark hours he manned our guns again ; 

Remanned ourselves from his own manhood's 
stores ; 
Pride, honor, country, throbbed through all his strain : 



34 LO WELL. 

And shall we praise ? God's praise was his before ; 
65 And on our futile laurels he looks down, 
Himself our bravest crown. 



AN INDIAN-SUMMER REVERIE. 

[When Mr. Lowell wrote this poem he was living at 
Elmwood in Cambridge, at that time quite remote from 
town influences, — Cambridge itself being scarcely more 
than a village, — but now rapidly losing its rustic sur- 
roundings. The Charles River flowed near by, then a 
limpid stream, untroubled by factories or sewage. It is 
a tidal river and not far from Elmwood winds through 
broad salt marshes. Mr. Longfellow's old home is a 
short stroll nearer town, and the two poets exchanged 
pleasant shots, as may be seen by Lowell's To H. W. L., 
and Longfellow's The Herons of Elmwood. In Under 
the Willows Mr. Lowell has, as it were, indulged in an- 
other reverie at a later period of his life, among the 
same familiar surroundings.] 

What visionary tints the year puts on, 
When falling leaves falter through motionless air 

Or numbly cling and shiver to be gone ! 
How shimmer the low flats and pastures bare, 
5 As with her nectar Hebe Autumn fills 

The bowl between me and those distant hills, 
And smiles and shakes abroad her misty, tremulous 
hair ! 

No more the landscape holds its wealth apart. 
Making me poorer in my poverty, 



AN INDIAN-SUMMER REVERIE. 35 

10 But mingles with my senses and my heart ; 
My own projected spii'it seems to me 

In her own reverie the world to steej) ; 

'T is she that waves to sympathetic sleep, 
Moving, as she is moved, each field and hill and tree. 

15 How fuse and mix, with what unfelt degrees, 
Clasped by the faint horizon's languid arms, 

Each into each, the hazy distances ! 
The softened season all the landscape charms ; 
Those hills, my native village that embay, 
20 In waves of dreamier purple roll away, 
And floating in mirage seem all the glimmering farms. 

Far distant sounds the hidden chickadee 
Close at my side ; far distant sound the leaves ; 
The fields seem fields of dream, where Memory 
25 Wanders like gleaning Ruth ; and as the sheaves 
Of wheat and barley wavered in the eye 
Of Boaz as the maiden's glow went by. 
So tremble and seem remote a11 things the sense re- 
ceives. 

The cock's shrill trump that tells of scattered corn, 
30 Passed breezily on by all his flapping mates, 

Faint and more faint, from barn to barn is borne, 
Southward, perhaps to far Magellan's Straits ; 

Dimly I catch the throb of distant flails ; 
34 Silently overhead the hen-hawk sails. 
With watchful, measuring eye, and for his quarry waits, 

The sobered robin, hunger-silent now. 
Seeks cedar-berries blue, his autumn cheer ; 



36 LOWELL. 

The squirrel, on the shingly shagbark's bough, 
Now saws, now lists with downward eye and ear, 
40 Then drops his nut, and, with a chipping bound. 

Whisks to his winding fastness underground ; 
The clouds like swans drift down the streaming atmos- 
phere. 

O'er yon bare knoll the pointed cedar shadows 
Drowse on the crisp, gray moss ; the ploughman's 
call 
45 Creeps faint as smoke from black, fresh-furrowed 
meadows ; 
The single crow a single caw lets fall ; 
And all around me every bush and tree 
Says Autumn 's here, and Winter soon will be, 
Who snows his soft, white sleep and silence over all. 

50 The birch, most shy and ladylike of trees. 
Her poverty, as best she may, retrieves, 
And hints at her foregone gentihties 
With some saved relics of her wealth of leaves ; 
The swamp-oak, with his royal purple on, 
65 Glares red as blood across the sinking sun. 
As one who proudlier to a falling fortune cleaves. 

He looks a sachem, in red blanket wrapt, 
Who, 'mid some council of the sad-garbed whites, 

Erect and stern, in his own memories lapt, 
60 With distant eye broods over other sights. 

Sees the hushed wood the city's flare replace, 

The wounded turf heal o'er the railway's trace. 
And roams the savage Past of his undwindled rights. 



AN INDIAN-SUMMER REVERIE. 37 

The red-oak, softer-grained, yields all for lost, 
66 Arid, with his crumpled foliage stiff and dry, 

After the first betrayal of the frost, 
Rebuffs the kiss of the relenting sky ; 

The chestnuts, lavish of their long-hid gold, 
69 To the faint Summer, beggared now and old, 
Pour back the sunshine hoarded 'neath her favoring eye. 

The ash her purple drops forgivingly 
And sadly, breaking not the general hush ; 

The maple-swamps glow like a sunset sea, 
Each leaf a ripple with its separate flush ; 
76 All round the wood's edge creeps the skirting 
blaze 
Of bushes low, as when, on cloudy days, 
Ere the rain falls, the cautious farmer burns his brush. 

O'er yon low wall, which guards one unkempt 
zone. 
Where vines and weeds and scrub-oaks intertwine 
80 Safe from the plough, whose rough, discordant 
stone 
Is massed to one soft gray by lichens fine. 

The tangled blackberry, crossed and recrossed, 

weaves 
A prickly network of ensanguined leaves ; 
Hard by, with coral beads, the prim black-alders shine. 

85 Pillaring with flame this crumbling boundary. 
Whose loose blocks topple 'neath the ploughboy's foot, 

Who, with each sense shut fast except the eye. 
Creeps close and scares the jay he hoped to shoot. 
The woodbine up the elm's straight stem aspires, 



38 LOWELL. 

90 Coiling it, harmless, with autumnal fires ; 

In the ivy's paler blaze the martyr oak stands mute. 

Below, the Charles — a stripe of nether sky, 
Now hid by rounded apple-trees between, 

Whose gaps the misplaced sail sweeps bellying by, 
95 Now flickering golden through a woodland screen, 
Then spreading out, at his next turn beyond, 
A silver circle like an inland pond — 
Slips seaward silently tlirough marshes purjjle and 
green. 

Dear marshes ! vain to him the gift of sight 
100 Who cannot in their various incomes share. 

From every season drawn, of shade and light. 
Who sees in them but levels brown and bare ; 

Each change of storm or sunshine scatters free 
104 On them its largess of variety. 
For Nature with cheap means still works her wonders 



In Spring they lie one broad expanse of green, 
O'er which the light winds run with glimmering feet : 

Here, yellower stripes track out the creek unseen. 
There, darker growths o'er hidden ditches meet ; 
no And purpler stains show where the blossoms crowd, 

As if the silent shadow of a cloud 
Hung there becalmed, with the next breath to fleet. 

All round, upon the river's slippery edge. 
Witching to deeper calm the drowsy tide, 
115 Whispers and leans the breeze-entangling sedge ; 
Through emerald glooms the lingering waters slide, 



AN INDIAN-SUMMER REVERIE. 39 

Or, sometimes wavering, throw back the smi. 
And the stiff banks in eddies melt and run 
Of dimphng light, and with the current seem to glide. 

120 In Summer 't is a blithesome sight to see, 
As, stej) by step, with measured swing, they pass, 

The wide-ranked mowers wading to the knee, 
Their sharp scythes panting tlirough the thick-set 
grass ; 
Then, stretched beneath a rick's shade in a ring, 
125 Their nooning take, while one begins to sing 
A stave that droojDs and dies 'neath the close sky of brass. 

Meanwhile that devil-may-care, the bobolink, 
Remembering duty, in mid-quaver stops 

Just ere he sweeps o'er rapture's tremulous brink, 
130 And 'twixt the winrows most demurely drops, 

A decorous bird of business, who provides 

For his brown mate and fledglings six besides. 
And looks from right to left, a farmer 'mid his crops. 

Another change subdues them in the Fall, 
135 But saddens not ; they still show merrier tints. 
Though sober russet seems to cover all ; 
When the first sunshine through their dewdrops glints, 
Look how the yellow clearness, streamed across, 
139 Redeems with rarer hues the season's loss. 
As Dawn's feet there had touched and left their rosy 
prints. 

Or come when sunset gives its freshened zest. 
Lean o'er the bridge and let the ruddy thrill, 
While the shorn sun swells down the hazy west, 



40 LOWELL. 

Glow opposite ; — the marshes drink their fill 
145 And swoon with purple veins, then slowly fade 

Through pink to brown, as eastward moves the 
shade, 
Lengthening with stealthy creep, of Simond's darkening 
hill. 

Later, and yet ere Winter wholly shuts, 
Ere through the first dry snow the runner grates, 
150 And the loath cart-wheel screams in slippery ruts, 
While firmer ice the eager boy awaits, 

Trying each buckle and strap beside the fire. 
And until bedtime plays with his desire. 
Twenty times putting on and off his new-bought 
skates ; — 

155 Then, every morn, the river's banks shine bright 
With smooth plate-armor, treacherous and frail. 

By the frost's clinking hammers forged at night, 
'Gainst which the lances of the sun prevail. 
Giving a pretty emblem of the day 
160 When guiltier arms in light shall melt away. 
And states shall move free-limbed, loosed from war's 
cramping mail. 

And now those waterfalls the ebbing river 
Twice every day creates on either side 

Tinkle, as through their fresh-sparred grots they 
shiver 
165 In grass-arched channels to the sun denied ; 

High flaps in sparkling blue the far-heard crow, 
The silvered flats gleam frostily below, 
Suddenly drops the gull and breaks the glassy tide. 



AN INDIAN-SUMMER REVERIE. 41 

But crowned in turn by vying seasons three, 
170 Their winter halo hath a fuller ring ; 

This glory seems to rest immovably, — 
The others were too fleet and vanishing ; 

When the hid tide is at its highest flow, 
174 O'er marsh and stream one breathless trance of snow 
With brooding fulness awes and hushes everything. 

The sunshine seems blown off by the bleak wind, 
As pale as formal candles lit by day ; 

Gropes to the sea the river dumb and blind ; 
The brown ricks, snow-thatched by the storm in play, 
180 Show pearly breakers combing o'er their lee. 

White crests as of some just enchanted sea, 
Checked in their maddest leap and hanging poised mid« 
way. 

But when the eastern blow, with rain aslant. 
From mid-sea's prairies green and rolling plains 
185 Drives in his wallowing herds of billows gaunt, 
And the roused Charles remembers in his veins 
Old Ocean's blood and snaps his gyves of frost, 
That tyrannous silence on the shores is tost 
In dreary wreck, and crumbling desolation reigns. 

190 Edgewise or flat, in Druid-like device, 
With leaden pools between or gullies bare, 

The blocks lie strewn, a bleak Stonehenge of ice ; 
No life, no sound, to break the grim despair. 
Save sullen plunge, as through the sedges stiff 
195 Down crackles riverward some thaw-sapped cliff. 
Or when the close-wedged fields of ice crunch here and 
there. 



42 LOWELL. 

But let me turn from fancy-pictured scenes 
To that whose pastoral calm before me lies : 
Here nothing harsh or rugged intervenes ; 
200 The early evening with her misty dyes 

Smooths off the ravelled edges of the nigh, 
Relieves the distant with her cooler sky, 
And tones the landscape down, and soothes the wea- 
ried eyes. 

There gleams my native village, dear to me, 
205 Though higher change's waves each day are seen, 

Whelming fields famed in boyhood's history. 
Sanding with houses the diminished green ; 

There, in red brick, which softening time defies, 
209 Stand square and stiff the Muses' factories ; — 
How with my life knit up is every weU-known scene ! 

Flow on, dear river ! not alone you flow 
To outward sight, and through your marshes wind ; 

Fed from the mystic springs of long-ago, 
Your twin flows silent through my world of mind ; 
215 Grow dim, dear marshes, in the evening's gray ! 

Before my inner sight ye stretch away. 
And will forever, though these fleshly eyes grow blind. 

Beyond the hillock's house-bespotted swell. 
Where Gothic chapels house the horse and chaise, 
220 Where quiet cits in Grecian temples dwell, 

Where Coptic tombs resound with prayer and praise, 
Where dust and mud the equal year divide, 
There gentle Allston lived, and wrought, and died, 
Transfiguring street and shop with his illumined gaze. 

223. In Cambridge Thirty Years Ago, which treats in prose of much the 
same period as this poem reproduces, Mr. Lowell has given more in detail his 



AN INDIAN-SUMMER REVERIE. 43 

226 Virgilmm vidi tantum, — I have seen 
But as a boy, who looks alike on all, 

That misty hair, that fine Undine-like mien, 
Tremulous as down to feeling's faintest call ; — 
Ah, dear old homestead ! count it to thy fame 
230 That thither many times the Painter came ; — 
One elm yet bears his name, a feathery tree and tall. 

Swiftly the present fades in memory's glow, — 
Our only sure possession is the past ; 

The village blacksmith died a month ago, 
235 And dim to me the forge's roaring blast ; 
Soon fire-new medisevals we shall see 
Oust the black smithy from its chestnut-tree. 
And that hewn down, perhaps, the bee-hive green and 
vast. 

How many times, prouder than king on throne, 
240 Loosed from the village school-dame's A's and B's, 
Panting have I the creaky bellows blown, 
And watched the pent volcano's red increase. 

Then paused to see the ponderous sledge, brought 
down 
244 By that hard arm voluminous and brown, 
From the white iron swarm its golden vanishing bees. 

recollections of Washington Allston, the painter. The whole paper may be 
read as a prose counterpart to this poem. It is published in Fireside Travels. 

'2f25. Virgilium vidi tantum, I barely saw Virgil, a Latin phrase applied to 
one who has merely had a glimpse of a great man. 

227. Undine is the heroine of a romantic tale by Baron De la Motte Fouqu^. 
She is represented as a water-nymph who wins a human soul only by a union 
with mortality wliich brings pain and sorrow. 

234. The village blacksmith of Longfellow's well-known poem. The 
prophecy came true as regards the hewing-down of the chestnut-tree which 
was cut down in 1876. 



44 LOWELL. 

Dear native town ! whose choking elms each year 
With eddying dust before their time turn gray, 

Pining for rain, — to me thy dust is dear ; 
It glorifies the eve of summer day, 
250 And when the westering sun half sunken burns, 

The mote-thick air to deepest orange turns, 
The westward horseman rides tlu'ough clouds of gold 
away. 

So palpable, I 've seen those unshorn few. 
The six old willows at the causey's end 
26B (Such trees Paul Potter never dreamed nor 
drew), 
Through this dry mist their checkering shadows 
send, 
Striped, here and there, with many a long-dra^vn 

thread. 
Where streamed through leafy chinks the trem- 
bling red. 
Past which, in one bright trail, the hangbird's flashes 
blend. 

260 Yes, dearer for thy dust than all that e'er, 
Beneath the awarded crown of victory. 

Gilded the blown Olympic charioteer ; 
Though lightly prized the ribboned parchments three, 
Yet collegisse juvat, I am glad 
265 That here what coUeging was mine I had, — 
It linked another tie, dear native town, with thee I 

264. Collegisse juvat. Horace iu his first ode says, Curriculo pulverem 
Olympictim, Collegisse juvat ; that is : Ifs a pleasure to have collected the 
dust of Olsmipus on your carriage- wheels. Mr. Lowell, helping himself to the 
words, says, " It 's a pleasure to have been at college ; " for college in its first 
meaning is a collection of men, as in the phrase " The college of cardinals." 



THE FIRST SNOW-FALL. 45 

Nearer art thou than simply native earth, 
My dust with thine concedes a deeper tie ; 
A closer claim thy soil may well put forth, 
270 Something of kindred more than sympathy ; 
For in thy bounds I reverently laid away 
That blinding anguish of forsaken clay, 
That title I seemed to have in earth and sea and 
sky, 

That portion of my life more choice to me 
275 (Though brief, yet in itself so round and whole) 
Than all the imperfect residue can be ; — 
The Artist saw his statue of the soul 

Was perfect ; so, with one regretful stroke, 
279 The earthen model into fragments broke, 
And without her the impoverished seasons roll. 



THE FIRST SNOW-FALL. 

The snow had begun in the gloaming, 

And busily all the night 
Had been heaping field and highway 

With a silence deep and white. 

5 Every pine and fir and hemlock 

Wore ermine too dear for an earl^ 
And the poorest twig on the elm-tree 
Was ridged inch-deep with pearl. 

275. The volume containing this poem was reverently dedicated " To the 
ever fresh and happy memory of our little Blanche." 



46 LOWELL. 

From sheds new-roofed with Carrara 
10 Came Chanticleer's mufl&ed crow, 

The stiff rails were softened to swan's-down^ 
And still fluttered down the snow. 

I stood and watched by the window 
The noiseless work of the sky, 
15 And the sudden flurries of snow-birds, 
Like brown leaves whirling by. 

I thought of a mound in sweet Auburn 

Where a little headstone stood ; 
How the flakes were folding it gently, 
20 As did robins the babes in the wood. 

Up spoke our own little Mabel, 

Saying, " Father, who makes it snow ? " 

And I told of the good All-father 
Who cares for us here below. 

2B Again I looked at the snow-fall. 
And thought of the leaden sky 
That arched o'er our first great sorrow, 
When that mound was heaped so high. 

I remembered the gradual patience 
30 That fell from that cloud like snow, 

Flake by flake, healing and hiding 
The scar of our deep-plunged woe. 

And again to the child I whispered, 
" The snow that husheth all, 

9. The marble of Cwrrai-a, Italy, is noted for its purity. 



THE OAK. 47 

BB Darling, the merciful Father 
Alone can make it fall ! " 

Then, with eyes that saw not, I kissed her ; 

And she, kissing back, could not know 
That Tny kiss was given to her sister, 
40 Folded close under deepening snow. 



THE OAK. 

What gnarled stretch, what depth of shade, is his ! 

There needs no crown to mark the forest's king ; 
How in his leaves outshines fidl summer's bliss ! 

Sun, storm, rain, dew, to him their tribute bring, 
5 Which he with such benignant royalty 

Accepts, as overpayeth what is lent ; 
All nature seems his vassal proud to be, 

And cunning only for his ornament. 

How towers he, too, amid the billowed snows, 
10 An unquelled exile from the summer's throne, 
Whose plain, uncinctured front more kingly shows, 
Now that the obscuring courtier leaves are flown. 
His boughs make music of the winter air, 

Jewelled with sleet, like some cathedral front 
15 Where clinging snow-flakes with quaint art repair 
The dints and furrows of time's envious brunt. 

How doth his patient strength the rude March wind 
Persuade to seem glad breaths of summer breeze, 
And win the soil that fain would be unkind, 
20 To swell his revenues with proud increase ! 



48 LOWELL. 

He is the gem ; and all the landscape wide 
(So doth his grandeur isolate the sense) 

Seems but the setting, wortliless all beside, 
An empty socket, were he fallen thence. 

26 So, from oft converse with life's wintry gales, 

Should man learn how to clasp with tougher roots 
The inspiring earth ; how otherwise avails 

The leaf-creating sap that sunward shoots ? 
So every year that falls with noiseless flake 
30 Should fill old scars up on the stormward side, 
And make hoar age revered for age's sake, 
Not for traditions of youth's leafy pride. 

So, from the pinched soil of a churlish fate, 
True hearts compel the sap of sturdier growth, 
35 So between earth and heaven stand simply great, 
That these shall seem but their attendants both ; 
For nature's forces with obedient zeal 

Wait on the rooted faith and oaken will ; 
As quickly the pretender's cheat they feel, 
40 And turn mad Pucks to flout and mock him still. 

Lord ! all Thy works are lessons ; each contains 

Some emblem of man's all-containing soul ; 
Shall he make fruitless all Thy glorious pains. 

Delving within Thy grace an eyeless mole ? 
45 Make me the least of thy Dodona-grove, 

Cause me some message of thy truth to bring, 
Speak but a word to me, nor let thy love 

Among my boughs disdain to perch and sing. 

40. See Shakspeare's A Midsummer NighVs Dream. 

45. A grove of oaks at Dodona, in ancient Greece, was the seat of a famous 
oracle. 



PROMETHEUS.. 49 



PROMETHEUS. 

[The classic legend of Prometheus underwent various 
changes in successive periods of Greek thought. In its 
main outline the story is the same : that Prometheus, 
whose name signifies Forethought, stole fire from Zeus, 
or Jupiter, or Jove, and gave it as a gift to man. For 
this, the angry god bound him upon Mount Caucasus, 
and decreed that a vulture should prey upon his liver, 
destroying every day what was renewed in the night. 
The struggle of man's thought to free itself from the 
tyranny of fear and superstition and all monsters of the 
imagination is illustrated in the myth. The myth is one 
which has been a favorite with modern poets, as witness 
Goethe, Shelley, Mrs. Browning, and Longfellow.] 

One after one the stars have risen and set. 
Sparkling upon the hoarfrost on my chain : 
The Bear, that prowled all night about the fold 
Of the North-Star, hath shrunk into his den, 

6 Scared by the blithesome footsteps of the Dawn, 
Whose blushing smile floods all the Orient ; 
And now bright Lucifer grows less and less. 
Into the heaven's blue quiet deep-withdrawnc 
Sunless and starless all, the desert sky 

10 Arches above me, empty as this heart 
For ages hath been empty of all joy. 
Except to brood upon its silent hope, 
As o'er its hope of day the sky doth now. 
All night have I heard voices : deeper yet 

15 The deep low breathing of the silence grew. 



60 LOWELL. 

While all about, muffled in awe, there stood 
Shadows, or forms, or both, clear-felt at heart, 
But, when I turned to front them, far along 
Only a shudder through the midnight ran, 

80 And the dense stillness walled me closer round. 
But still I heard them wander up and down 
That solitude, and flappings of dusk wings 
Did mingle with them, whether of those hags 
Let slip upon me once from Hades deep, 

«5 Or of yet direr torments, if such be, 

I could but guess ; and then toward me came 
A shape as of a woman : very pale 
It was, and calm ; its cold eyes did not move. 
And mine moved not, but only stared on them. 

30 Their fix^d awe went through my brain like ice ; 
A skeleton hand seemed clutching at my heart, 
And a sharp chill, as if a dank night fog 
Suddenly closed me in, was all I felt : 
And then, methought, I heard a freezing sigh, 

35 A long, deep, shivering sigh, as from blue lips 
Stiffening in death, close to mine ear. I thought 
Some doom was close upon me, and I looked 
And saw the red moon through the heavy mist, 
Just setting, and it seemed as it were falling, 

40 Or reeling to its fall, so dim and dead 

And palsy-struck it looked. Then all sounds merged 
Into the rising surges of the pines, 
Which, leagues below me, clothing the gaunt loins 
Of ancient Caucasus with hairy strength, 

i6 Sent up a murmur in the morning wind, 
Sad as the wail that from the populous earth 
All day and night to high Olympus soars. 
Fit incense to thy wicked throne, O Jove ! 



PROMETHEUS. 51 

Thy hated name is tossed once more in scorn 

60 From off my lips, for I will tell thy doom. 

And are these tears ? Nay, do not triumph, Jove ! 
They are wrung from me but by the agonies 
Of prophecy, like those sparse drops which fall 
From clouds in travail of the lightning, when 

B5 The great wave of the storm high-curled and black 
Rolls steadily onward to its thunderous break. 
Why art thou made a god of, thou poor type 
Of anger, and revenge, and cunning force ? 
True Power was never born of brutish strength, 

60 Nor sweet Truth suckled at the shaggy dugs 
Of that old she-wolf. Are thy thunder-bolts, 
That quell the darkness for a space, so strong 
As the prevailing patience of meek Light, 
Who, with the invincible tenderness of peace, 

66 Wins it to be a portion of herself ? 

Why art thou made a god of, thou, who hast 
The never-sleeping terror at thy heart, 
That birthright of all tyrants, worse to bear 
Than this thy ravening bird on which I smile ? 

70 Thou swear' st to free me, if I will unfold 
What kind of doom it is whose omen flits 
Across thy heart, as o'er a troop of doves 
The fearful shadow of the kite. What need 
To know that truth whose knowledge cannot save ? 

75 Evil its errand hath, as well as Good ; 

When thine is finished, thou art known no more : 
There is a higher purity than thou, 
And higher purity is greater strength ; 
Thy nature is thy doom, at which thy heart 
80 Trembles behind the thick wall of thy might. 

Let man but hope, and thou art straightway chilled 



52 LOWELL. 

With thought of that drear silence and deep night 
Which, like a dream, shall swallow thee and thine : 
Let man but will, and thou art god no more, 

85 Mor6 capable of ruin than the gold 
And ivory that image thee on earth. 
He who hurled down the monstrous Titan-brood 
Blinded with lightnings, with rough thunders stunned. 
Is weaker than a simple human thought. 

90 My slender voice can shake thee, as the breeze, 
That seems but apt to stir a maiden's hair, 
Sways huge Oceanus from pole to pole ; 
For I am still Prometheus, and foreknow 
In my wise heart the end and doom of all. 

95 Yes, I am still Prometheus, wiser grown 
By years of solitude, — that holds apart 
The past and future, giving the soul room 
To search into itself, — and long commune 
With this eternal silence ; — more a god, 

100 In my long-suffering and strength to meet 
With equal front the direst shafts of fate, 
Than thou in thy faint-hearted despotism. 
Girt with thy baby-toys of force and wrath. 
Yes, I am that Prometheus who brought down 

105 The light to man, which thou, in selfish fear, 
Hadst to thyself usurped, — his by sole right, 
For Man hath right to all save Tyranny, — 
And which shall free him yet from thy frail throne. 
Tyrants are but the spawn of Ignorance, 

110 Begotten by the slaves they trample on. 
Who, could they win a glimmer of the light, 
And see that Tyranny is always weakness, 

87. That is, Jove himself. 



PROMETHEUS. 53 

Or Fear with its own bosom ill at ease, 

Would laugh away in scorn the sand-wove chain 

115 Which their own blindness feigned for adamant. 
Wrong ever builds on quicksands, but the Right 
To the firm centre lays its moveless base. 
The tyrant trembles, if the air but stirs 
The innocent ringlets of a child's free hair, 

120 And crouches, when the thought of some great spirit^ 
With world-wide murmur, like a rising gale. 
Over men's hearts, as over standing corn, 
Rushes, and bends them to its own strong will. 
So shall some thought of mine yet circle earth, 

125 And puff away thy crumbling altars, Jove ! 

And, wouldst thou know of my supreme revenge, 
Poor tyrant, even now dethroned in heart, 
Realmless in soul, as tyrants ever are. 
Listen ! and tell me if this bitter peak, 

130 This never-glutted vulture, and these chains 
Shrink not before it ; for it shall befit 
A sorrow-taught, unconquered Titan-heart. 
Men, when their death is on them, seem to stand 
On a precipitous crag that overhangs 

135 The abyss of doom, and in that depth to see, 
As in a glass, the features dim and vast 
Of things to come, the shadows, as it seems, 
Of what had been. Death ever fronts the wise ; 
Not fearfully, but with clear promises 

2.40 Of larger life, on whose broad vans upborne, 
Their outlook widens, and they see beyond 
The horizon of the present and the past, 
Even to the very source and end of things. 
Such am I now : immortal woe hath made 



54 LOWELL. 

145 My heart a seer, and my soul a judge 

Between the substance and the shadow of Truth. 
The sure supremeness of the Beautiful, 
By all the martyrdoms made doubly sure 
Of such as I am, this is my revenge, 

160 Which of my wrongs builds a triumphal arch, 
Through which I see a sceptre and a throne. 
The pipings of glad shepherds on the hills. 
Tending the flocks no more to bleed for thee, — 
The songs of maidens pressing with white feet 

165 The vintage on thine altars poured no more, — 
The murmurous bliss of lovers, underneath 
Dim grapevine bowers, whose rosy bunches press 
Not half so closely their warm cheeks, unpaled 
By thoughts of thy brute lust, — the hive-like hum 

160 Of peaceful commonwealths, where sunburnt Toil 
Reaps for itself the rich earth made its own 
By its own labor, lightened with glad hymns 
To an omnipotence which thy mad bolts 
Would cope with as a spark with the vast sea, — 

165 Even the spirit of free love and peace, 

Duty's sure recompense through life and death, — 
These are such harvests as all master-spirits 
Reap, haply not on earth, but reap no less 
Because the sheaves are bound bv hands not theirs ; 

170 These are the bloodless daggers wherewithal 
They stab fallen tyrants, this their high revenge ; 
For their best part of life on earth is when, 
Long after death, prisoned and pent no more. 
Their thoughts, their wild dreams even, have become 

176 Part of the necessary air men breathe : 

When, like the moon, herself behind a cloud, 
They shed down light before us on life's sea, 



PROMETHEUS. 55 

That cheers us to steer onward still in hope. 

Earth with her twining memories ivies o'er 
180 Their holy sepulchi^es ; the chainless sea, 

In tempest or wide calm, repeats theii' thoughts ; 

The lightning and the thunder, all free things. 

Have legends of them for the ears of men. 

All other glories are as falling stars, 
186 But universal Nature watches theirs : 

Such strength is won by love of human-kind. 

Not that I feel that hunger after fame, 
Which souls of a half-greatness are beset with ; 
But that the memory of noble deeds 

190 Cries shame upon the idle and the vile. 
And keeps the heart of Man forever up 
To the heroic level of old time. 
To be forgot at first is little pain 
To a heart conscious of such high intent 

19B As must be deathless on the lips of men ; 
But, having been a name, to sink and be 
A something which the world can do without. 
Which, having been or not, would never change 
The lightest pulse of fate, — this is indeed 

200 A cup of bitterness the worst to taste. 

And this thy heart shall empty to the dregs. 
Endless despair shall be thy Caucasus, 
And memory thy vulture ; thou wilt find 
Oblivion far lonelier than this peak, — 

205 Behold thy destiny ! Thou think'st it much 
That I shoidd brave thee, miserable god ! 
But I have braved a mightier than thou. 
Even the tempting of this soaring heart. 
Which might have made me, scarcely less than thou. 



56 LOWELL, 

210 A god among my brethren weak and blind, — 
Scarce less than thou, a pitiable thing 
To be down-trodden into darkness soon. 
But now I am above thee, for thou art 
The bungling workmanship of fear, the block 

215 That awes the swart Barbarian ; but I 

Am what myself have made, — a nature wise 
With finding in itself the types of all, — 
With watching from the dim verge of the time 
What things to be are visible in the gleams 

220 Thrown forward on them from the hmiinous past, — « 
Wise with the history of its own frail heart. 
With reverence and with sorrow, and with love. 
Broad as the world, for freedom and for man. 

Thou and all strength shall crumble, except Love, 

225 By whom, and for whose glory, ye shall cease : 
And, when thou art but a dim moaning heard 
From out the pitiless gloom of Chaos, I 
Shall be a power and a memory, 
A name to fright all tyrants with, a light 

230 Upsetting as the pole-star, a great voice 
Heard in the breathless pauses of the fight 
By truth and freedom ever waged with wrong. 
Clear as a silver trumpet, to awake 
Huge echoes that from age to age live on 

235 In kindred spirits, giving them a sense 

Of boundless power from boundless suffering wrung i 
And many a glazing eye shall smile to see 
The memory of my triumph (for to meet 
Wrong with endurance, and to overcome 

240 The present with a heart that looks beyond, 
Are triumph), like a prophet eagle, perch 



PROMETHEUS. 57 

Upon the sacred banner of the Right. 

Evil springs up, and flowers, and bears no seed, 

And feeds the green earth with its swift decay, 

245 Leaving it richer for the growth of truth ; 
But Good, once put in action or in thought, 
Like a strong oak, doth from its boughs shed down 
The ripe germs of a forest. Thou, weak god, 
Shalt fade and be forgotten ! but this soul, 

250 Fresh-living still in the serene abyss, 

In every heaving shall jDartake, that grows 
From heart to heart among the sons of men, — 
As the ominous hum before the earthquake runs 
Far through the ^gean from roused isle to isle, — 

255 Foreboding wreck to palaces and shrines. 
And mighty rents in many a cavernous error 
That darkens the free light to man : — This heart, 
Unscarred by thy grim vulture, as the truth 
Grows but more lovely 'neath the beaks and claws 

260 Of HarjDies blind that fain would soil it, shall 
In all the throbbing exultations share 
That wait on freedom's triumphs, and in all 
The glorious agonies of martyr-spirits, — 
Sharp lightning-throes to spht the jagged clouds 

266 That veil the future, showing them the end, — 
Pain's thorny crown for constancy and truth, 
Girding the temples like a wreath of stars. 
Tliis is a thought, that, like the fabled laurel, 
Makes my faith thunder-proof ; and thy dread bolts 

270 Fall on me like the silent flakes of snow 
On the hoar brows of aged Caucasus : 
But, O thought far more blissful, they can rend 
This cloud of flesh, and make my soul a star ! 



58 LOWELL. 

Unleash thy crouching thunders now, O Jove ! 

27B Free this high heart, which, a poor captive long. 
Doth knock to be let forth, this heart which still, 
In its invincible manhood, overtops 
Thy puny godship, as this mountain doth 
The pines that moss its roots. Oh, even now, 

280 While from my peak of suffering I look down, 
Beholding with a far-spread gush of hope 
The sunrise of that Beauty, in whose face. 
Shone all around with love, no man shall look 
But straightway like a god he is uplift 

285 Unto the throne long empty for his sake. 
And clearly oft foreshadowed in wide dreams 
By his free inward nature, which nor thou, 
Nor any anarch after thee, can bind 
From working its great doom, — now, now set free 

290 This essence, not to die, but to become 

Part of that awful Presence which doth haunt 
The palaces of tyrants, to hunt off, 
With its grim eyes and fearful whisperings 
And hideous sense of utter loneliness, 

296 All hope of safety, all desire of peace. 

All but the loathed f oref eeling of blank death, — 

Part of that spirit which doth ever brood 

In patient calm on the unpilfered nest 

Of man's deep heart, till mighty thoughts grow fledged 

800 To sail with darkening shadow o'er the world, 
Filling with dread such souls as dare not trust 
In the unfailing energy of Good, 
Until they swoop, and their pale quarry make 
Of some o'erbloated wrong, — that spirit which 

306 Scatters great hopes in the seed-field of man, 
Like acorns among grain, to grow and be 



PROMETHEUS. 59 

A roof for freedom in all coming time 1 
But no, this cannot be ; for ages yet, 
In solitude unbroken, shall I hear 

310 The angry Caspian to the Euxine shout, 
And Euxine answer with a muffled roar, 
On either side storming the giant walls 
Of Caucasus with leagues of climbing foam 
(Less, from my height, than flakes of downy snow), 

31B That draw back bafiied but to hurl again, 
Snatched up in wrath and horrible turmoil. 
Mountain on mountain, as the Titans erst, 
My brethren, scaling the high seat of Jove, 
Heaved Pelion upon Ossa's shoulders broad 

320 In vain emprise. The moon will come and go 
With her monotonous vicissitude ; 
Once beautiful, when I was free to walk 
Among my fellows, and to interchange 
The influence benign of loving eyes, 

325 But now by aged use grown wearisome ; — 

False thought ! most false ! for how could I endure 
These crawling centuries of lonely woe 
Unshamed by weak complaining, but for thee. 
Loneliest, save me, of all created things, 

330 Mild-eyed Astarte, my best comforter, 
With thy pale smile of sad benignity ? 

Year after year will pass away and seem 
To me, in mine eternal agony, 
But as the shadows of dumb summer clouds, 
335 Which I have watched so often darkening o'er 
The vast Sarmatian plain, league-wide at first. 
But, with still swiftness, lessening on and on 

330. Daughter of Heaven and Earth, and symbol of Nature. 



60 LOWELL. 

Till cloud and shadow meet and mingle where 
The gray horizon fades into the sky, 

340 Far, far to northward. Yes, for ages yet 
Must I lie here upon my altar huge, 
A sacrifice for man. Sorrow will be. 
As it hath been, his portion ; endless doom, 
"While the immortal with the mortal linked 

345 Dreams of its wings and pines for what it dreams, 
With upward yearn unceasing. Better so : 
For wisdom is meek sorrow's patient child, 
And emj^ire over self, and all the deep 
Strong charities that make men seem like gods ; 

350 And love, that makes them be gods, from her breasts 
Sucks in the milk that makes mankind one blood. 
Good never comes unmixed, or so it seems, 
Having two faces, as some images 
Are carved, of foohsh gods ; one face is ill ; 

856 But one heart lies beneath, and that is good. 
As are all hearts, when we explore their depths. 
Therefore, great heart, bear up ! thou art but type 
Of what all lofty spirits endure, that fain 
Would win men back to strength and peace through 
love : 

360 Each hath his lonely peak, and on each heart 
Envy, or scorn, or hatred, tears lifelong 
With vulture beak ; yet the high soul is left ; 
And faith, which is but hope grown wise ; and love 
And patience, which at last shall overcome. 



TO W. L. GARRISON. 61 



TO W. L. GAKRISON. 

" Some time afterward, it was reported to me by the city officers that they 
had ferreted out the paper and its editor ; that his office was an obscure hole, 
his only visible auxiliary a negro boy, and his supporters a few very insignifi- 
cant pe»ons of aU colors." — Letter of H. G. Otis. 

In a small chamber, friendless and unseen, 

Toiled o'er his types one poor, unlearned young 
man ; 

The place was dark, unfurnitured, and mean ; — 
Yet there the freedom of a race began. 

5 Help came but slowly ; surely no man yet 
Put lever to the heavy world with less : 
What need of help ? He knew how types were set, 
He had a dauntless spirit, and a press. 

Such earnest natures are the fiery pith, 
10 The compact nucleus, round which systems grow ! 
Mass after mass becomes inspired therewith, 
And whirls impregnate with the central glow, 

O Truth ! O Freedom I how are ye still born 
In the rude stable, in the manger nursed ! 
15 What humble hands unbar those gates of morn 

Through which the splendors of the New Day burst ! 

What ! shall one monk, scarce known beyond his cell. 
Front Rome's far-reaching bolts, and scorn her 
frown ? 

6. Archimedes, a great philosopher of antiquity, used to say, " Only give 
me a place to stand on, and I wUl move the world with my lever." 



62 LO WELL. 

Brave Luther answered Yes ; that thunder's swell 
20 Rocked Europe, and discharmed the triple crown. 

Whatever can be known of earth we know, 

Sneered Europe's wise men, in their snail-shells 
curled ; 

No ! said one man in Genoa, and that No 
Out of the dark created this New World. 

25 Who is it will not dare himself to trust ? 

Who is it hath not strength to stand alone ? 
Who is it thwarts and bilks the inward must ? 

He and his works, like sand, from earth are blown 

Men of a thousand shifts and wiles, look here ! 
30 See one straightforward conscience put in pawn 
To win a world ; see the obedient sphere 
By bravery's simple gravitation drawn ! 

Shall we not heed the lesson taught of old, 
And by the Present's lips repeated still, 
35 In our own single manhood to be bold, 

Fortressed in conscience and impregnable will ? 

We stride the river daily at its spring, 

Nor, in our childish thoughtlessness, foresee, 
What myriad vassal streams shall tribute bring, 
40 How like an equal it shall greet the sea. 

O small beginnings, ye are great and strong, 
Based on a faithful heart and weariless brain ! 

Ye build the future fair, ye conquer wrong, 
Ye earn the crown, and wear it not in vain. 



TEE BIGLOW PAPERS. 63 



WENDELL PHILLIPS. 

He stood upon the world's broad threshold ; wide 
The din of battle and of slaughter rose ; 
He saw God stand upon the weaker side, 
That sank in seeming loss before its foes : 

6 Many there were who made great haste and sold 
Unto the cunning enemy their swords, 
He scorned their gifts of fame, and power, and gold, 
And, underneath their soft and flowery words, 
Heard the cold serpent hiss ; therefore he went 

10 And humbly joined him to the weaker part. 
Fanatic named, and fool, yet well content 
So he could be the nearer to God's heart. 
And feel its solemn pulses sending blood 
Through all the widespread veins of endless good. 



MR. HOSEA BIGLOW TO THE EDITOR OF THE 
ATLANTIC MONTHLY. 

[When the Mexican war was under discussion, Mr. 
Lowell began the publication in a Boston newspaper of 
satirical poems, written in the Yankee dialect, and pur- 
porting to come for the most part from one Hosea Big- 
low. The poems were the sharpest political darts that 
were fired at the time, and when the verses were col= 
lected and set forth with a paraphernalia of introductions 
and notes professedly prepared by an old-fashioned, 
scholarly parson, Rev. Homer Wilbur, the book gave 
Mr. Lowell a distinct place as a wit and satirist, and was 
read with delight in England and America after the cir- 



64 LOWELL. 

cumstance which called it out had become a matter of 
history and no longer of politics. 

When the war for the Union broke out, Mr. Lowell 
took up the same strain and contributed to the Atlantic 
Monthly a second series of Biglow Fajpers^ and just be- 
fore the close of the war, published the poem that fol- 
lows.] 

Dear Sir, — Your letter come to ban' 

Requestin' me to please be funny ; 
But I ain't made upon a plan 

Thet knows wut 's comin', gall or honey : 
5 Ther' 's times the world doos look so queer, 

Odd fancies come afore I call 'em ; 
An' then agin, for half a year, 

No preacher 'thout a call 's more solemn. 

You 're 'n want o' sunthin' light an' cute, 
10 Rattlin' an' shrewd an' kin' o' jingleish, 
An' wish, pervidin' it 'ould suit, 

I 'd take an' citify my English. 
I hen write long-tailed, ef I please, — 
But when I 'm jokin', no, I thankee ; 
15 Then, 'fore I know it, my idees 
Run helter-skelter into Yankee. 

Sence I begun to scribble rhyme, 

I tell ye wut, I hain't ben f oolin' ; 
The parson's books, life, death, an' time 
20 Hev took some trouble with my schoolin' ; 
Nor th' airth don't git put out with me, 

Thet love her 'z though she wuz a woman ; 
Why, th' ain't a bird upon the tree 

But half forgives my bein' human. 



THE BIGLOW PAPERS. 65 

25 An' yit I love th' unhighschooled way 
or farmers hed when I wuz younger ; 
Their talk wuz meatier, an' 'ould stay, 

While book-froth seems to whet your hunger •, 
For puttin' in a downright lick 
30 'Twixt Humbug's eyes, ther' 's few can metch itj 
An' then it helves my thoughts ez slick 
Ez stret-grained hickory doos a hetchet. 

But when I can't, I can't, thet 's all, 
For Natur' won't put up with guUin* ; 
^ Idees you hev to shove an' haul 

Like a druv pig ain't wuth a mullein : 
Live thoughts ain't sent for ; thru all rifts 
O' sense they pour an' resh ye onwards, 
Like rivers when south-lyin' drifts 
40 Feel thet th' old airth 's a-wheelin' sunwards. 

Time wuz, the rhymes come crowdin' thick 

Ez office-seekers arter 'lection, 
An' into ary place 'ould stick 

Without no bother nor objection ; 
45 But sence the war my thoughts hang back 

Ez though I wanted to enlist 'em. 
An' subs'tutes — they don't never lack, 

But then they '11 slope afore you 've mist 'em. 

Nothin' don't seem like wut it wuz ; 
50 I can't see wut there is to hender. 
An' yit my brains jes' go buzz, buzz, 

Like bumblebees agin a winder ; 
'Fore these times come, in all airth's row, 

Ther' wuz one quiet place, my head in, 



Qe LOWELL. 

66 Where I could hide an' think, — but now 
It 's all one teeter, hopin', dreadin'. 

Where 's Peace ? I start, some clear-blown night, 
When gaunt stone walls grow numb an' number, 

An', creakin' 'cross the snow-crus' white, 
60 Walk the col' starlight into summer ; 

Up grows the moon, an' swell by swell 
Thru the pale pasturs silvers dimmer 

Than the last smile thet strives to tell 
O' love gone heavenward in its shimmer. 

66 I hev ben gladder o' sech things 

Than cocks o' spring or bees o' clover, 
They filled my heart with livin' springs, 

But now they seem to freeze 'em over ; 
Sights innercent ez babes on knee, 
70 Peaceful ez eyes o' pastur'd cattle, 
Jes' coz they be so, seem to me 

To rile me more with thoughts o' battle. 

In-doors an' out by spells I try ; 

Ma'am Natur' keeps her spin-wheel goin', 
75 But leaves my natur' stiff and dry 
Ez fiel's o' clover arter mowin' ; 
An' her jes' keepin' on the same, 

Calmer 'n a clock, an' never carin'. 
An' findin' nary thing to blame, 
30 Is wus than ef she took to swearin'. 

Snow-flakes come whisperin' on the pane. 

The charm makes blazin' logs so pleasant, 
But I can't hark to wut they 're say'n', 



THE BIGLOW PAPERS. 67 

With Grant or Sherman oilers present ; 
85 The chimbleys shudder in the gale, 

Thet lulls, then suddin takes to flappin' 
Like a shot hawk, but all 's ez stale 
To me ez so much sperit-rappin'. 

Under the yaller-pines 1 house, 
90 When sunshine makes 'em all sweet-scented, 
An' hear among their furry boughs 

The baskin' west-wind purr contented, 
While 'way o'erhead, ez sweet an' low 
Ez distant bells thet ring for meetin', 
96 The wedged wil' geese their bugles blow, 
Further an' further South retreatin'. 

Or up the slippery knob I strain 

An' see a hundred hills like islan's 
Lift their blue woods in broken chain 
100 Out o' the sea o' snowy silence ; 

The farm-smokes, sweetes' sight on airth, 

Slow thru the winter air a-shrinkin' 
Seem kin' o' sad, an' roun' the hearth 

Of empty places set me thinkin'. 

105 Beaver roars hoarse with meltin' snows. 

An' rattles di'mon's from his granite ; 

Time wuz, he snatched away my prose, 

An' into psalms or satires ran it ; 
But he, nor all the rest thet once 
110 Started my blood to country-dances, 
Can't set me goin' more 'n a dunce 

Thet hain't no use for dreams an' fancies. 

105. Beaver Brook, a tributary of the Charles. 



68 LOWELL. 

Rat-tat-tat-tattle thru the street 
I hear the drummers makin' riot, 
116 An' I set thinkin' o' the feet 

Thet follered once an' now are quiet, — = 
White feet ez snowdrops innercent, 

Thet never knowed the paths o' Satan, 
Whose comin' step ther' 's ears thet won't, 
120 No, not lifelong, leave off awaitin'. 

Why, hain't I held 'em on my knee ? 

Did n't I love to see 'em growin', 
Three likely lads ez wal could be, 

Hahnsome an' brave an' not tu knowin' ? 
125 I set an' look into the blaze 

Whose natur', jes' like theirn, keeps climbin', 
Ez long 'z it lives, in shinin' ways, 

An' half despise myself for rhymin'. 

Wut 's words to them whose faith an' truth 
130 On War's red techstone rang true metal. 
Who ventei-ed life an' love an' youth 

For the gret prize o' death in battle ? 
To him who, deadly hurt, agen 

Flashed on afore the charge's thunder, 
135 Tippin' with fire the bolt of men 

Thet rived the Rebel line asunder ? 

'T ain't right to hev the young go fust. 
All tlirobbin' full o' gifts an' graces, 

Leavin' life's paupers dry ez dust 
140 To try an' make b'lieve fill their places : 

Nothin' but tells us wut we miss, 

Ther' 's gaps our lives can't never fay in, 



THE BIGLOW PAPERS. 69 

An' thet world seems so fur from this 
Lef ' for us loafers to grow gray in ! 

145 My eyes cloud up for rain ; my mouth 

Will take to twitchin' roun' the corners ; 
I pity mothers, tu, down South, 

For all they sot among the scorners : 
I 'd sooner take my chance to stan' 
160 At Jedgment where your meanest slave is, 
Than at God's bar hoi' up a han' 

Ez drippin' red ez yourn, Jeff Davis ! 

Come, Peace ! not like a mourner bowed 
For honor lost an' dear ones wasted, 
166 But proud, to meet a people proud. 

With eyes thet tell o' triumph tasted ! 
Come, with han' grippin' on the hilt, 

An' step thet proves ye Victory's daughter \ 
Longin' for you, our sperits wilt 
160 Like shipwrecked men's on raf's for water. 

Come, while our country feels the lift 

Of a gret instinct shoutin' forwards, 
An' knows thet freedom ain't a gift 

Thet tarries long in han's o' cowards ! 
165 Come, sech ez mothers prayed for, when 

They kissed their cross with lips thet quivered, 
An' bring fair wages for brave men, 

A nation saved, a race deUvered ! 



70 LOWELL. 



VILLA FRANCA. 

[The battles of Magenta and Solferino, in the early 
summer of 1859, had given promise of a complete eman- 
cipation of Italy from the Austrian supremacy, when 
Napoleon III., who was acting in alliance with Victor 
Emmanuel, king of Sardinia, held a meeting with the 
emperor Francis Joseph of Austria at ViUa Franca, and 
agreed to terms which were very far from including 
the unification of Italy. There was a general distrust 
of Napoleon, and the war continued with the final re- 
sult of a united Italy. In the poem which follows Mr. 
Lowell gives expression to his want of faith in the French 
emperor.] 

Wait a little : do we not wait ? 
Louis Napoleon is not Fate, 
Francis Joseph is not Time ; 
There 's One hath swifter feet than Crime ; 
5 Cannon-parliaments settle naught ; 

Venice is Austria's, — whose is Thought ? 
Minie is good, but, spite of change, 
Gutenberg's gun has the longest range. 

Spin, spin, Clotho, spin ! 
10 Lachesis, twist ! and, Atropos, sever ! 

In the shadow, year out, year in, 

The silent headsman waits forever. 

Wait, we say ; our years are long ; 
Men are weak, but Man is strong ; 

9. Clotho, Lachesis, and Atropos were the three Fates of the ancient m>'- 
thology ; Clotho spun the thread of human destiny, Lachesis twisted it, an(J 
Atropos with shears severed it. 



VILLA FRANCA. 71 

Since the stars first curved their rings, 
We have looked on many things ; 
Great wars come and great wars go, 
Wolf-tracks light on polar snow ; 
We shall see him come and gone, 
This second-hand Napoleon. 

Spin, spin, Clotho, spin ! 

Lachesis, twist ! and, Atropos, sever ! 

In the shadow, year out, year in. 

The silent headsman waits forever. 

We saw the elder Corsican, 
And Clotho muttered as she span. 
While crowned lackeys bore the train, 
Of the pinchbeck Charlemagne : 
" Sister, stint not length of thread ! 
Sister, stay the scissors dread ! 
On Saint Helen's granite bleak. 
Hark, the vulture whets his beak ! " 

Spin, spin, Clotho, spin ! 

Lachesis, twist ! and, Atropos, sever ! 

In the shadow, year out, year in. 

The silent headsman waits forever. 

The Bonapartes, we know their bees 

That wade in honey red to the knees : 

Their patent reaper, its sheaves sleep sound 

In dreamless garners underground : 

We know false glory's spendthrift race 

Pawning nations for feathers and lace ; 

It may be short, it may be long, 

" 'T is reckoning-day ! " sneers unpaid Wrong. 



72 LOWELL. 

16 Spin, spin, Clotho, spin !. . 

Lachesis, twist ! and, Atropos, sever \ 
In the ^sfeadow, year i out/ year in, 

\ The silent headsman wa^fe forever. 

The Cock that wears the Eagle's skin 
50 Can promise what he ne'er could win ; 
Slavery reaped for fine words sown, 
System for all, and rights for none, 
Despots atoji, a wild clan below, 
Such is the Gaul from long ago ; 
65 Wash the black from the Ethiop's face, 
Wash the past out of man or race ! 
Spin, spin, Clotho, spin ! 
Lachesis, twist ! and, Atropos, sever ! 
In the shadow, year out, year in, 
60 The silent headsman waits forever. 

'Neath Gregory's throne a spider swings, 

And snares the people for the kings ; 

" Luther is dead ; old quarrels pass ; 

The stake's black scars are healed with grass 
65 So dreamers prate ; did man e'er live 

Saw priest or woman yet forgive ; 

But Luther's broom is left, and eyes 

Peep o'er their creeds to where it lies. 
Spin, spin, Clotho, spin ! 
10 Lachesis, twist ! and, Atropos, sever ! 
In the shadow, year out, year in. 
The silent headsman waits forever. 



61. There was more than one Pope Gregory, but Gregory VII. in the eleventh 
century brought the papacy to its supreme power, when kings humbled them- 
selves before the Pope. 



THE NIGHTINGALE IN THE STUDY. 73 

Smooth sails the ship of either reahn, 
Kaiser and Jesuit at the helm ; 
We look down the depths, and mark 
Silent workers in the dark 
Building slow the sharp-tusked reefs, 
Old instincts hardening to new beliefs ; 
Patience a little ; learn to wait ; 
Hours are long on the clock of Fate. 

Spin, spin, Clotho, spin ! 

Lachesis, twist ! and, Atropos, sever ! 

Darkness is strong, and so is Sin, 

But only God endures forever ! 



THE NIGHTINGALE IN THE STUDY. 

" Come forth ! " my catbird calls to me, 

" And hear me sing a cavatina 
That, in this old familiar tree, 

Shall hang a garden of Alcina. 

6 *' These buttercups shall brim with wine 
Beyond all Lesbian juice or Massic ; 
May not New England be divine ? 
My ode to ripening summer classic ? 

" Or, if to me you will not hark, 
10 By Beaver Brook a thrush is ringing 
Till all the alder-coverts dark 

Seem sunshine-dappled with his singing. 

" Come out beneath the unmastered sky, 
With its emancipating spaces, 



74 LOWELL. 

15 And learn to sing as well as I, 
Without premeditated graces. 

" What boot your many-volumed gains, 

Those withered leaves forever turning, 
To win, at best, for all your pains, 
20 A nature mummy-wrapt in learning ? 

*' The leaves wherein true wisdom lies 
On living trees the sun are drinking ; 

Those white clouds, drowsing through the skies, 
Grew not so beautiful by thinking. 

25 " Come out ! with me the oriole cries, 
Escape the demon that pursues you ! 
And, hark, the cuckoo weatherwise. 

Still hiding, farther onward wooes you." 

" Alas, dear friend, that, all my days, 
30 Has poured from thy syringa thicket 
The quaintly discontinuous lays 

To which I hold a season-ticket, — 

" A season-ticket cheaply bought 
With a dessert of pilfered berries, 
35 And who so oft my soul has caught 

With morn and evening voluntaries, — 

" Deem me not faithless, if all day 
Among my dusty books I linger, 
No pipe, like thee, for June to play 
40 With fancy-led, half-conscious finger. 



THE NIGHTINGALE IN THE STUDY. 15 

" A bird is singing in my brain 

And bubbling o'er with mingled fancies, 

Gay, tragic, rapt, right heart of Spain 
Fed with the sap of old romances. 

45 "I ask no ampler skies than those 
His magic music rears above me, 
No falser friends, no truer foes, — 
And does not Dona Clara love me ? 

" Cloaked shapes, a twanging of guitars, 
60 A rush of feet, and rapiers clashing, 
Then silence deep with breathless stars. 
And overhead a white hand flashing. 

" O music of all moods and climes. 
Vengeful, forgiving, sensuous, saintly, 
55 Where still, between the Christian chimes, 
The moorish cymbal tinkles faintly ! 

" O life borne lightly in the hand, 

For friend or foe with grace Castilian ! 
O vaUey safe in Fancy's land, 
eo Not tramped to mud yet by the million ! 

" Bird of to-day, thy songs are stale 

To his, my singer of all weathers. 
My Calderon, my nightingale. 

My Arab soul in Spanish feathers. 

65 '' Ah, friend, these singers dead so long, 
And still, God knows, in purgatory. 
Give its best sweetness to all song, 
To Nature's self her better glory." 



76 LOWELL. 



ALADDIN. 

When I was a beggarly boy, 

And lived in a cellar damp, 
I had not a friend nor a toy, 

But I had Aladdin's lamp ; 
5 When I could not sleep for cold, 

I had fire enough in my brain. 
And builded with roofs of gold 

My beautiful castles in Spain ! 

Since then I have toiled day and night, 
10 I have money and power good store, 
But I 'd give all my lamps of silver bright 

For the one that is mine no more ; 
Take, Fortune, whatever you choose. 
You gave, and may snatch again ; 
15 I have nothing 't would pain me to lose, 
For I own no more castles in Spain ! 



BEAVER BROOK. 

Hushed with broad sunlight lies the hill, 
And, minuting the long day's loss, 
The cedar's shadow, slow and still. 
Creeps o'er its dial of gray moss. 

6 Warm noon brims full the valley's cup. 
The aspen's leaves are scarce astir ; 
Only the little mill sends up 
Its busy, never-ceasing burr. 



BEAVER BROOK. 77 

Climbing the loose-piled wall that hems 
10 The road along the mill-pond's brink, 
From 'neath the arching barberry-stems, 
My footstep scares the shy chewink. 

Beneath a bony buttonwood 
The mill's red door lets forth the din ; 
15 The whitened miller, dust-imbued, 
FHts past the square of dark within. 

No mountain torrent's strength is here ; 
Sweet Beaver, child of forest still, 
Heaps its small pitcher to the ear, 
20 And gently waits the miller's will. 

Swift slips Undine along the race 
Unheard, and then, with flashing bound, 
Floods the dull wheel with light and grace, 
And, laughing, hunts the loath drudge round. 

25 The miller dreams not at what cost 
The quivering millstones hum and whirl, 
Nor how for every turn are tost 
Armfuls of diamond and of pearl. 

But Summer cleared my happier eyes 
30 With drops of some celestial juice, 
To see how Beauty underlies, 
Forevermore each form of use. 

And more ; methought I saw that flood, 
Which now so dull and darkling steals, 

18. Beaver Brook was within walking distance of the poet's home. See The 
Nightingale in the Study. 



78 LOWELL. 

36 Thick, here and there, with human blood, 
To turn the world's laborious wheels. 

No more than doth the miller there, 
Shut in our several cells, do we 
Know with what waste of beauty rare 
40 Moves every day's machinery. 

Surely the wiser time shall come 
When this fine overplus of might, 
No longer sullen, slow, and dumb, 
Shall leap to music and to light. 

45 In that new childhood of the Earth 
Life of itself shall dance and play. 
Fresh blood in Time's shrunk veins make mirth, 
And labor meet delight half way. 



THE SHEPHERD OF KING ADMETUS. 

There came a youth upon the earth, 

Some thousand years ago. 
Whose slender hands were nothing worth, 
Whether to plough, or reap, or sow. 

5 Upon an empty tortoise-shell 

He stretched some chords, and drew 
Music that made men's bosoms swell 
Fearless, or brimmed their eyes with dew. 



Then King Admetus, one who had 
10 Pure taste by right divine. 



THE SHEPHERD OF KING ADMETUS. 79 

Decreed his singing not too bad 
To hear between the cups of wine : 

And so, well pleased with being soothed 
Into a sweet half-sleep, 
15 Three times his kingly beard he smoothed, 
And made him viceroy o'er his sheep. 

His words were simple words enough, 

And yet he used them so, 
That what in other mouths was rough 
20 In his seemed musical and low. 

Men called him but a shiftless youth, 

In whom no good they saw ; 
And yet, unwittingly, in truth, 
They made his careless words their law. 

25 They knew not how he learned at all, 
For idly, hour by hour. 
He sat and watched the dead leaves fall, 
Or mused upon a common flower. 

It seemed the loveliness of things 
30 Did teach him all their use, 

For, in mere weeds, and stones, and springs, 
He found a healing power profuse. 

Men granted that his speech was wise. 
But, when a glance they caught 
35 Of his slim grace and woman's eyes, 

They laughed, and called him good-for-naught. 



80 LOWELL. 

Yet after he was dead and gone, 

And e'en his memory dim, 
Earth seemed more sweet to live upon, 
40 More full of love, because of him. 

And day by day more holy grew 
Each spot where he had trod, 
Till after-poets only knew 
Their first-born brother as a god. 



THE PRESENT CRISIS. 

[In the year 1844, which is the date of the following 
poem, the question of the annexation of Texas was 
pending, and it was made an issue of the presidential 
campaign then taking place. The anti-slavery party 
feared and opposed annexation, on account of the added 
strength which it would give to slavery, and the South 
desired it for the same reason.] 

When a deed is done for Freedom, through the 
broad earth's aching breast 

Runs a thrill of joy prophetic, trembling on from east 
to west, 

And the slave, where'er he cowers, feels the soul 
within him climb 

To the awful verge of manhood, as the energy sub- 
lime 
5 Of a century bursts full-blossomed on the thorny stem 
of Time. 



THE PRESENT CRISIS. 81 

Through the walls of hut and palace shoots the instan- 
taneous throe, 

When the travail of the Ages wrings earth's systems 
to and fro ; 

At the birth of each new Era, with a recognizing 
start, 

Nation wildly looks at nation, standing with mute lips 
apart, 
10 And glad Truth's yet mightier man-child leaps be- 
neath the Future's heart. 

So the Evil's triumph sendeth, with a terror and a 
chill, 

Under continent to continent, the sense of coming ill. 

And the slave, where'er he cowers, feels his sympa- 
thies with God 

In hot tear-drops ebbing earthward, to be drunk up 
by the sod, 
15 Till a corpse crawls round unburied, delving in the 
nobler clod. 

For mankind are one in spirit, and an instinct bears 

along, 
Round the earth's electric circle, the swift flash of 

right or wrong ; 
Whether conscious or unconscious, yet Humanity's 

vast frame 
Through its ocean-sundered fibres feels the gush of 

joy or shame ; — 
20 In the gain or loss of one race all the rest have equal 

claim. 

17. This figure has special force from the fact that Morse's telegraph was 
first put in operation a few months before the writing of this poem. 



82 LOWELL. 

Once to every man and nation comes the moment to 

decide, 
In the strife of Truth with Falsehood, for the good or 

evil side ; 
Some great cause, God's new Messiah, offering each 

the bloom or blight. 
Parts the goats upon the left hand, and the sheep 

upon the right, 
26 And the choice goes by forever 'twixt that darkness 

and that light. 

Hast thou chosen, O my people, on whose party thou 

shalt stand, 
Ere the Doom from its worn sandals shakes the dust 

against our land ? 
Though the cause of Evil prosper, yet 't is Truth alone 

is strong. 
And, albeit she wander outcast now, I see around her 

throng 
30 Troops of beautiful, tall angels, to enshield her from 

all wrong. 

Backward look across the ages and the beacon-mo- 
ments see. 

That, like peaks of some sunk continent, jut through 
Oblivion's sea ; 

Not an ear in court or market for the low foreboding 
cry 

Of those Crises, God's stern winnowers, from whose 
feet earth's chaff must fly ; 

29. Compare : — 

" Truth crushed to earth shall rise again, 
The eternal years of God are hers." 

Bryant. 



THE PRESENT CRISIS. 83 

36 Never shows the choice momentous till the judgment 
hath passed by. 

Careless seems the great Avenger ; history's pages but 

record 
One death-grapple in the darkness 'twixt old systems 

and the Word ; 
Truth forever on the scaffold, Wrong forever on the 

throne, — 
Yet that scaffold sways the future, and, behind the dim 

unknown, 
10 Standeth God within the shadow, keeping watch above 

his own. 

We see dimly in the Present what is small and what is 

great, 
Slow of faith how weak an arm may turn the iron 

helm of fate. 
But the soul is still oracular ; amid the market's din. 
List the ominous stern whisper from the Delphic cave 

within, — 
6 " They enslave their children's children who make 

compromise with sin." 

Slavery, the earth-born Cyclops, fellest of the giant 

brood. 
Sons of brutish Force and Darkness, who have 

drenched the earth with blood. 
Famished in his self-made desert, blinded by our 

purer day, 

37. " In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the 
7ord was God." 



84 LO WELL. 

Gropes in yet unblasted regions for his miserable 
prey ; — 
50 Shall we guide his gory fingers where our helpless 
children play ? 

Then to side with Truth is noble when we share her 
wretched crust, 

Ere her cause bring fame and profit, and 't is pros- 
perous to be just ; 

Then it is the brave man chooses, while the coward 
stands aside. 

Doubting in his abject spirit, till his Lord is crucified, 
66 And the nmltitude make virtue of the faith they had 
denied. 

Count me o'er earth's chosen heroes, — they were 
souls that stood alone, 

While the men they agonized for hurled the contume- 
lious stone. 

Stood serene, and down the future saw the golden 
beam incline 

To the side of perfect justice, mastered by their faith 
divine, 
60 By one man's plain truth to manhood and to God's 
supreme design. 

By the light of burning heretics Christ's bleeding feet 

I track, 
Toiling up new Calvaries ever with the cross that 

turns not back, 

50. For the full story of Cj'clops, which runs in suggestive phrase through 
these five lines, see the ninth book of the Odyssey. The translation by G. H. 
Palmer will be found especially satisfactory. 



« THE PRESENT CRISIS. 86 

And these mounts of anguish number how each gen- 
eration learned 

One new word of that grand Credo which in prophet- 
hearts hath burned 
65 Since the first man stood God-conquered with his face 
to heaven upturned. 

For Humanity sweeps onward : where to-day the 

martyr stands, 
On the morrow crouches Judas with the silver in liis 

hands ; 
Far in front the cross stands ready and the crackling 

fagots burn, 
Wliile the hooting mob of yesterday in silent awe 

return 
70 To glean up the scattered ashes into History's golden 



urn. 



'T is as easy to be heroes as to sit the idle slaves 

Of a legendary virtue carved upon our fathers' 

gi'aves, 
Worsliippers of light ancestral make the present light 

a crime ; — 
Was the Mayflower launched by cowards, steered by 

men behind their time ? 
76 Turn those tracks toward Past or Future, that make 

Plymouth Edck sublime ? 

They were men of present valor, stalwart old icono- 

•clasts, 
Unconvinced by axe or gibbet that all virtue was the 
Past's ; 

64. The creed is so named from the first word in the Latin form, credo, I 
believe. 



86 LOWELL. 

But we make their truth our falsehood, thinking that 

hath made us free, 
Hoarding it in mouldy parchments, while our tender 

spirits flee 
80 The rude grasp of that great Impulse which drove 

them across the sea. 

They have rights who dare maintain them ; we are 
traitors to our sires, 

Smothering in their holy ashes Freedom's new-lit altar- 
fires ; 

Shall we make their creed our jailer ? Shall we, in 
our haste to slay, 

From the tombs of the old prophets steal the funeral 
lamps away 
86 To light up the martyr-fagots round the prophets of 
to-day ? 

New occasions teach new duties ; Time makes ancient 
good uncouth ; 

They must upward still, and onward, who would keep 
abreast of Truth ; 

Lo, before us gleam her camp-fires ! we ourselves 
must Pilgrims be. 

Launch our Mayflower, and steer boldly through the 
desperate winter sea, 
90 Nor attempt the Future's portal with the Past's blood- 
rusted key. 



AL FBESCO. 87 



AL FRESCO. 



The dandelions and buttercups 
Gild all the lawn ; the drowsy bee 
Stumbles among the clover-tops, 
And summer sweetens all but me : 

B Away, unfruitful lore of books, 
For whose vain idiom we reject 
The soul's more native dialect, 
Aliens among the birds and brooks. 
Dull to interpret or conceive 

10 What gospels lost the woods retrieve ! 
Away, ye critics, city-bred, 
Who springes set of thus and so, 
And in the first man's footsteps tread, 
Like those who toil tlirough drifted snow 1 

15 Away, my poets, whose sweet spell 
Can make a garden of a cell ! 
I need ye not, for I to-day 
Will make one long sweet verse of play. 

Snap, chord of manhood's tenser strain ! 

20 To-day I will be a boy again ; 
The mind's pursuing element. 
Like a bow slackened and unbent, 
In some dark corner shall be leant. 
The robin sings, as of old, from the limb ! 

25 The catbird croons in the lilac bush ! 

Through the dim arbor, himself more dim. 



15 There is a delightful pair of poems by Wordsworth, Expostulation and 
Reply, and The Tables Turned, which show how another poet treats books 
and nature. 



88 LOWELL. 

Silently hops the hermit-thrush, 

The withered leaves keep dumb for him ; 

The irreverent buccaneering bee 

30 Hath stormed and rifled the nunnery 
Of the lily, and scattered the sacred floor 
With haste-dropt gold from slu'ine to door ; 
There, as of yore, 
The rich, milk-tingeing buttercup 

36 Its tiny polished urn holds up, 

Filled with ripe summer to the edge, 
The sun in his own wine to pledge ; 
And our tall elm, this hundredth year 
Doge of our leafy Venice here, 

40 Who, with an annual ring, doth wed 
The blue Adriatic overhead. 
Shadows with his palatial mass 
The deep canals of flowing grass. 

O unestranged birds and bees ! 

45 face of Nature always true ! 
O never-unsympathizing trees ! 
O never-rejecting roof of blue. 
Whose rash disherison never falls 
On us unthinking prodigals, 

60 Yet who convictest all our ill. 
So grand and unappeasable ! 
Methinks my heart from each of these 
Plucks part of childhood back again, 
Long there imprisoned, as the breeze 

55 Doth every hidden odor seize 
Of wood and water, hill and plain ; 
Once more am I admitted peer 
In the upper house of Nature here, 



AL FBESCO. 89 

And feel through all my pulses run 
60 The royal blood of breeze and sun. 

Upon these elm-arched solitudes 

No hum of neighbor toil intrudes ; 

The only hammer that I hear 

Is wielded by the woodpecker, 
65 The single noisy calling his 

In all our leaf-hid Sybaris ; 

The good old time, close-hidden here, 

Persists, a loyal cavalier, 

While Roundheads prim, with point of fox, 
70 Probe wainscot-chink and empty box; 

Here no hoarse-voiced iconoclast 

Insults thy statues, royal Past ; 

Myself too prone the axe to wield, 

I touch the silver side of the shield 
75 With lance reversed, and challenge peace, 

A willing convert of the trees. 

How chanced it that so long I tost 
A cable's length from this rich coast, 
With foohsh anchors hugging close 
80 The beckoning weeds and lazy ooze. 
Nor had the wit to wreck before 
On this enchanted island's shore. 
Whither the current of the sea, 
With wiser drift, persuaded me ? 

85 O, might we but of such rare days 
Build up the spirit's dwelling-place ! 
A temple of so Parian stone 
Would brook a marble god alone, 



90 LOWELL. 

The statue of a perfect life, 
90 Far-shrined from earth's bestaining strife. 
Alas ! though such felicity 
In our vext world here may not be, 
Yet, as sometimes the peasant's hut 
Shows stones which old religion cut 
95 With text inspired, or mystic sign 
Of the Eternal and Divine, 
Torn from the consecration deep 
Of some fallen nunnery's mossy sleep, 
So, from the ruins of this day 

100 Crumbling in golden dust away, 

The soul one gracious block may draw, 
Carved with some fragment of the law. 
Which, set in life's prosaic wall. 
Old benedictions may recall, 

105 And lure some nunlike thoughts to take 
Their dwelling here for memory's sake. 



THE FOOT-PATH. 

It mounts athwart the windy hill 

Through sallow slopes of upland bare, 

And Fancy climbs with foot-fall still 
Its narrowing curves that end in air. 

5 By day, a warmer-hearted blue 

Stoops softly to that topmost swell ; 
Its thread-like windings seem a clew 
To gracious climes where all is well. 

By night, far yonder, I surmise 
10 An ampler world than clips my ken. 



THE FOOT-PATH. 91 

Where the great stars of happier skies 
Commingle nobler fates of men. 

I look and long, then haste me home, 
Still master of my secret rare ; 
IB Once tried, the path would end in Rome, 
But now it leads me everywhere. 

Forever to the new it guides, 

From former good, old overmuch ; 
What Nature for her poets hides, 
20 'T is wiser to divine than clutch. 

The bird I list hath never come 

Within the scope of mortal ear ; 
My prying stejD would make him dumb, 

And the fair tree, his shelter, sear. 

26 Behind the hill, behind the sky, 

Behind my inmost thought, he sings ; 
No feet avail ; to hear it nigh. 

The song itself must lend the wings. 

Sing on, sweet bird, close hid, and raise 
30 Those angel stairways in my brain, 
That climb from these low-vaulted days 
To spacious sunshines far from pain. 

Sing when thou wilt, enchantment fleet, 
I leave thy covert haunt untrod, 
35 And envy Science not her feat 

To make a twice-told tale of God. 



92 LOWELL. 

They said the fairies tript no more, 

And long ago that Pan was dead ; 

'T was but that fools preferred to bore 

40 Earth's rind inch-deep for truth instead. 

Pan leaps and pipes all summer long, 

The fairies dance each full-mooned night, 

Would we but doff our lenses strong. 
And trust our wiser eyes' delight. 

46 City of Elf-land, just without 
Our seeing, marvel ever new, 
Glimpsed in fair v/eather, a sweet doubt 
Sketched-in, mirage-like, on the blue. 

I build thee in yon sunset cloud, 
60 Whose edge allures to climb the height ; 
I hear thy drowned bells, inly-loud. 

From still pools dusk with dreams of night. 

Thy gates are shut to hardiest will, 

Thy countersign of long-lost speech, — 
65 Those fountained courts, those chambers still, 
Fronting Time's far East, who shall reach ? 

I know not, and will never pry. 

But trust our human heart for all ; 
Wonders that from the seeker fly 
60 Into an open sense may fall. 

Hide in thine own soul, and surprise 
The password of the unwary elves ; 

Seek it, thou canst not bribe their spies ; 
Unsought, they whisper it themselves. 



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